


The Triumvirate

by musicin68



Series: The Triumvirate (Complete) [1]
Category: The Expanse (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Chrisjen/Cotyar/Bobbie a little bit, Emotions, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Intrigue, Multi, book/show canon mashup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-19
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-05-08 20:37:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 30,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14701794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicin68/pseuds/musicin68
Summary: On the way to Luna, theRocistops over at Ceres to reunite the families torn apart by Strickland's twisted hybrid experimentation. What the crew of theRocisees as a chance to unwind, a faction of the OPA sees as an opportunity not to be missed.Set between 0306 and 0307 - book/show canon mix. One last adventure, before these people presumably go their separate ways.





	1. Chapter 1

Chrisjen woke to a massive headache. God, she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so hungover. The problem was, she hadn’t been drinking. Bad air. Fuck, she hated space so much. The next problem was she didn’t have a fucking clue _where_ she was. Not anywhere on the _Roci,_ it smelled different and the walls were some sort of metal-reinforced rock rather than the clean lines of Martian military engineering. Ceres somewhere then, unless she had been unconscious for a very, very long time. She sat up with a low moan, her gaze falling on a sandy-haired belter she had never seen before.

He sat on a small stool, his long limbs folded awkwardly as he watched her. “Ah, you awake, Madam.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

He shrugged. “Right now, just a belta. Tomorrow, who knows?”

“OPA,” she said grimly, his silence confirming her statement. “Did you bring me here to kill me, then?” Her voice was steadier than she thought possible.

“Na, you live.” He smiled greedily. “Cause you gonna help me.”

“And how can I do that?”

“Mi pensa, Tumang, you gonna open doors fo mi. Dawes, he got them scientist. Fred Johnson got da weapons. And now, I got you.”

 

 

 

_Eight Hours Earlier_

Bobbie looked up as movement in the medbay door caught her eye. Chrisjen stood there, watching, having finally emerged from their cabin. When the ceasefire between Mars and the UN had been announced, Holden had finally opened up the comms and given Avasarala free rein. She had been sending and receiving messages from Earth almost non-stop since.

Bobbie on the other hand wasn’t doing much of anything. She was close to a full recovery from her latest hybrid encounter, but for a while longer she was stuck spending an hour a day in this damn chair to repair her damaged blood vessels. Not too hefty a price all things considered; her body had tried it’s very hardest to bleed out completely under her skin.

Alex sat across from her, chatting away. He had taken it on himself to make sure she was well fed and had yet to miss a meal. The latest offering had been pasta in some sort of rich sauce; it wasn’t half bad. “Some of us are planning a little R&R when we hit Ceres. It’s been a while. You should come. Blow off some steam, have a little fun.”

“I don’t know,” Bobbie smirked. “My boss is a hard-ass. I don’t think she likes fun.”

Chrisjen rolled her eyes and finally walked into the room. “Your ‘boss’ is going to be having plenty of fun. She’s babysitting.”

To the surprise of a few of the ice-haulers, Avasarala had proven more than capable with the children in the days they had traveled together since Io. Bobbie hadn’t found it surprising at all, but still couldn’t resist teasing her. “I didn’t realize Prax was looking to expand his daughter’s vocabulary.”

“Oh please, I won’t say a fucking thing they haven’t already heard from Amos.”

Alex stood, accepting that Bobbie’s attention was no longer his. “Ma’am,” he nodded politely and began gathering their trays.

When he had finished cleaning up and left, Avasarala sat down in his vacated spot and pulled her terminal out. “He likes you.”

Bobbie shrugged. “He’s nice.”

Avasarala shook her head, the smallest of smiles on her face. “He wants to get into your pants.”

“And you don’t?” Bobbie grinned back suggestively.

The older woman held her gaze evenly; she didn’t even blush, damn her.

Bobbie gave up goading her. “Well, we’re the only Martians on the _Rocinante._ We do have a few things in common.”

Chrisjen nodded thoughtfully. “Do you want to return to Mars?”

“What? Why?” The cuff beeped softly as Bobbie’s heart rate jumped and she cursed. She wasn’t going to panic. “Is there something wrong with my asylum? What have you heard?” This was not panicking, this was getting important information. She’d almost believe that the politician was fucking with her in retaliation for her teasing, but there was something about the set of her face that curtailed that thought.

“Nothing’s wrong. You have family on Mars. I assumed you would want to see them again.”

“That’s…yes. I mean, of course I would. I just figured it would be with a thirteen minute delay.” She paused, her heart slowing slightly. “Returning…is that an option without going to prison?”

“You’ve been instrumental in stopping a war that has proven very costly to Mars. One, according to the official line, they never wanted. Repatriating you with honors should not be too difficult,” Avasarala said, watching her closely.

Bobbie struggled to wrap her head around the possibility. She’d always assumed, when she’d crossed the line dividing the Martian embassy from UN soil, that that was it. There was no going back. And then Avasarala had come for her and there was really no going back. She hadn’t considered that she might be able to go home, even as a fever dream. Bobbie felt strangely adrift. “How…?”

“Really?” Avasarala looked like she was caught between trying not to laugh and letting loose a blistering tirade at Bobbie for what could only be purposeful stupidity. “Political favors are one of the few things that fall squarely in my wheelhouse.”

Bobbie frowned at her. She didn’t want to play games, so she asked straight out, “Do you want me to go?”

Chrisjen let out a sigh. “I want you to be happy.”

That raised an eyebrow. “Who are you, and what have you done with the Deputy Undersecretary of the UN?”

“I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“I’m not the Deputy Undersecretary anymore.”

“They didn’t fire you.” Bobbie said incredulously.

“Nothing so kind.”

The medcuff chimed that it’s cycle was complete and Bobbie slid her arm out. “Did you get Errinwright’s job, then?” she asked cautiously. Chrisjen didn’t look happy, but surely she wouldn’t have been offering political favors if she had been shunted off into some obscure government hell.

“Sorrento-Gillis has resigned.”

“Oh,” Bobbie said, “Oh, shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [He wants] " _to get into your pants.' 'And you don’t?'”_ was basically lifted straight out of Caliban's War. Maybe it's more cute-best friend dialog in the book, but all my attempts to change it once I realized I had _ahem_ borrowed it, just sounded wrong. If I come up with something else I'll change it. Clearly even the authors ship Chrisjen/Bobbie. ;)
> 
> Also, please forgive my belter creole. I looked up a few things, but mostly I'm just making shit up


	2. Chapter 2

Chrisjen grimaced. Her head hurt too much to be trying to bargain for her life. “I don’t understand.”

“You tell da Earthers to give us ships. We let you live.”

She took a deep breath. “What kind of ships? Patrolers? Destroyers?”

“Na, na!” He laughed. “Mi pensa they kill us both before they give up military.” He grinned at her again. “I want ice-haulers, transports. He who brings da food, da owkwa, is king. ”

She nodded carefully, trying not to make the headache worse, “Most of those kinds of ships are corporate owned. They contract with the UN. They don’t belong to the government.”

“Earth got shipyards. They should use them to build for life, not war.”

A breath escaped her. “I can’t disagree with that, but building ships takes time,” she hedged.

He shrugged, “You not goin anywhere.” He paused, a flicker of excitement passing over his face, “Eh, maybe for now, a little gunship. Maybe that one we pull you off. For protection.”

She noted his use of the plural, that was a first in their conversation. How many people were working with him? She tried to place his face, had she ever seen it in a report or threat assessment?Was he a faction leader or was this merely an opportunistic power grab?She also hadn’t missed his expression when he had asked for the _Rocinante,_ despite his protestations that what he wanted were non-military ships. “What’s your name?”

“Why you want to know?”

“It’s generally my policy to know who I’m negotiating with. What faction of the OPA are you speaking for?”

“Ah, but we not negotiating. You get me what I want.” He leaned in towards her as he spoke, letting his hand settle on his sidearm. “Or I let my friends string you up in da Medina as an example that Earth doesn’t own us anymore.”

Chrisjen was used to people who thought they could intimidate her by invading her personal space. Though to be fair, it was not usually accompanied by a very real threat to her life. She resisted the urge to lean away from him. “You don’t need to threaten me; it’s obvious my life is in your hands. All the more reason for me to want to know your name.”

He leaned back thoughtfully when she did not retreat. “Healy Nesah. Now, we talk about how you get me my ships.”

 

 

 

_Three Hours Earlier_

“Stop fretting. Fred is sending someone to get me.”

Holden kept frowning. “I’d be happier if you’d let us take you to Tycho.”

“It’s days out of your way. Besides, you wouldn’t want to keep her highness waiting.” Naomi shouldered her bag, nodding to Avasarala where she sat at the galley table. Chrisjen looked up from her hand terminal just long enough to roll her eyes.

“I’m still in charge here,” he grumbled.

Naomi hummed. “She's a paying client, now. Besides, I’d have thought you couldn’t wait to get that asshole Mao off your ship.”

“I can’t, but he’s in no position to hurt anyone at the moment. Aside from having to feed him three squares a day, it’s almost like he doesn’t exist.”

The engineer gave up trying to ease the near permanent crease in Holden’s forehead with a sigh. “Come on, you promised me a proper drink.”

Holden took the proffered hand and the two of them left the galley. Chrisjen continued to page through her messages. She finally put her terminal down when Mei came tearing around the corner, Prax and Amos following in her wake. “Nana!”

She hoisted the little girl up on her hip with a smile.

“Thank you again, for watching her,” Prax said, “It’s really generous of you. I hate to impose—”

“Be quiet,” Avasarala interrupted. “I hate having to fu—, to repeat myself. It isn’t an imposition. We’re going to have fun, aren’t we?” she asked her charge.

Mei nodded enthusiastically. “Can we go zero-g?”

“Not tonight. But I found something in the ship’s stores for us that you can only make with gravity.”

Mei’s eyes got big, “What?”

Chrisjen’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, “Cookies.” Mei laughed and Chrisjen smiled again.

“We won’t be out too late,” Prax began.

“We’ll be out late,” Amos cut in.

“It’s fine. Shoo,” Chrisjen said, waving them out.

“I love you, sweetheart.”

“I love you too, daddy! Be good for Amos!”

Bobbie stifled a laugh as she came down the hall. She stopped in the galley as Chrisjen set Mei down in a chair and began rummaging through the cabinets for their dinner. “Hey.”

“Stop looking at me like that,” Chrisjen said without turning around.

“You can’t even see the expression I’m making.”

“It’s the same expression you’ve had on your face since I told you about Sorrento-Gillis.”

Bobbie huffed.

“You see. I’m right.”

“You’re not always right.”

“Is this really the argument you want to have?” Chrisjen pulled out a tray of macaroni and ‘cheese’ and turned to face her.

Bobbie tried to school her face to something neutral. “Are you sure this is okay? This stop? Because we got those kids to their families. There’s no reason for us to stay here longer.”

“Are you trying to get out of being Alex’s wingman? Because it’s not my fault you agreed to that.”

“What’s a wingman?” Mei interjected.

Bobbie turned to her. “Um, a wingman is someone who’ll watch out for you, have your back.”

“Like a best friend?”

“Sure. Sometimes just like that.”

Mei nodded sagely. “So Amos is daddy’s wingman.”

“I’m not taking the blame for that one.” Avasarala said, fighting to keep a straight face.

Bobbie shook her head. “I’m serious. Shouldn’t you be heading straight back to Earth? Have you even told anyone else here?”

Avasarala bent low over the table resting her elbows on it so she could look Mei level in the eyes. “Do you think Teddy would like to have dinner with us?”

Mei nodded eagerly. “She’s my wingman!”

“Why don’t you run and get her?” Mei hopped out of the chair and skipped off to collect her bear. Avasarala fixed Bobbie with a glare. “I haven’t, and neither will you.”

Of all the things that had come out of this shit storm, Chrisjen should have expected this one. She could blame being shot at, nearly stroking out, the fucking proto-molecule, or any of the rightly distracting things that were happening all around her, but the fact was she had just missed it. Because of course Sorrento-Gillis would abandon the mess to someone else. And with Errinwright heading to prison, the only one left standing was her.

What she really wanted to do was let loose a blistering torrent of vulgarity that would lay waste to her surroundings like a nuclear blast. She was never going to be able to get anything done ever again. If she had been on Earth this would never have happened. She could have used the bobblehead’s ego, convinced him to stick around until the next cycle, when she would have gotten someone else elected. But she wasn’t there, and that fucking empty suit had promptly shit himself when the proto-molecule had launched whatever it had been working on off of Venus and stepped down. That motherfucker.

Bobbie wasn’t wrong, there was no reason for Avasarala not to insist on heading sunward immediately. Except that she wanted to pretend for a little while longer that her life was still her own, and letting the crew of the _Roci_ unwind a bit for morale was a good enough excuse. It was a stolen moment, and she fucking deserved it.

“Look. I get it’s not my business, but I can’t tell what’s going on inside your head, and if Cotyar were here he’d have my ass.”

Chrisjen gritted her teeth against the wave of sadness that rolled through her. “I don’t expect you to do his job.” Cotyar was gone, another victim of Mao and Errinwright, but Bobbie was here. She really needed to figure out what she was doing with Bobbie. She couldn’t, in good conscious, ask her to stay now that there was no reason she couldn’t go home. Of course, now more than ever, Chrisjen could really use her.

Politically, it would be an almost perfect statement: the Secretary-General of the UN with a Martian advisor and bodyguard. It would only be better if she could add a Belter, the triad an ideal representation of humanity in the system. And personally, she really liked the Martian. Underneath all that muscled killing power, was a smart, heart-strong girl with an inexplicable fondness for mean old ladies. There were so few people Chrisjen felt true affection for, she could hardly blame herself for wanting to keep Bobbie near.

It was her own fault; she should never have let herself get so close. She didn’t want to think about what her Martian marine would want to do after they arrived on Luna, but Chrisjen had never been one to avoid the things that were hard, and she certainly had made decisions before that had cost her, both politically and personally. Bobbie would make a decision soon and Chrisjen would live with it.

The mask slipped ever so slightly. “We all need some time. A few more hours won’t change anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if jumping back and forth between present and past is working. If it's coming across oddly, or hard to read, please let me know. You can also let me know if you like it :)


	3. Chapter 3

Nesah pulled out a cracked hand terminal. “You make a recording. Tell the UN to give me my ships. We broadcast it for you.”

Avasarala rubbed at her temple. “On an open channel? To everyone?”

“No reason to keep a secret.”

“God, you’re as bad as Holden. There’s every fucking reason,” she snapped. Chrisjen bit down on her lip and tried to rein herself in. Yes, she hurt, but pissing off Nesah wouldn’t help her cause any. She began again, her explanation more gentle. “If you make it public that you are holding me, the UN will be forced to try and take you out.”

“They try to kill me, nating stop me killing you. They won’t risk it, mi pensa.”

She shook her head. “They won’t have a choice. It’s the official line. The UN doesn’t deal with terrorists.”

“Then you had best make fo sure they do. It's in your interest,” he said with a growl.

"It is. Which is why I’m telling you this.” She looked at him closely. “I’m surprised you don’t seem too concerned about Anderson Dawes. I was under the impression the OPA on Ceres answered to him. What will he do when he finds out I'm here?”

“He’s not gonna do nating,” Healy spat. “He got no navy. You gotta gunship docked here. We just take that if he so unhappy about it.”

She looked unconvinced but said, “I’ll make your recording, but you need to send it to my people under the radar. The captain of my ship will be able to forward it where it needs to go. Assuming you haven’t killed them all.” 

Healy let the silence sit between them and Chrisjen clenched her jaw against the possibility that Bobbie, Mei, and the crew of the _Rocinante_ were dead. Finally he spoke. “Could do that. How do I know this nada trick?”

Chrisjen let out a breath, shaky with relief. “You’re in control here. If you don’t like it, it doesn’t get sent.”

He frowned, searching her face. “You gonna do both. That way if you lie to me, everyone gonna know. And then everyone gonna watch you die.”

 

 

 

_One Hour Earlier_

Chrisjen hummed softly as she moved around the little cabin cleaning up. She hadn’t sung that particular song in years, but Mei had liked it well enough. Her grandson claimed he was too old for songs at bedtime anymore, and she was not ashamed to admit that she missed it.

Chrisjen glanced down at Mei; the girl was finally asleep. It was startling how much of a mess a five year old could make on a military ship with next to no toys or personal possessions. She straightened with a sigh and surveyed the room. It would do. Mei slept on, blissfully unaware that her blanket fort was now folded back away from whence it had come. Chrisjen collected their discarded bulbs, one still half full of hot chocolate, and returned to the galley.

Leaning against the table she opened her terminal for the first time since Prax and Amos had left the ship. “Fuck me.” Dozens of messages filled her inbox. She blew an irritated breath out of her nostrils. The only reason she had turned the damn thing on at all was she had been hoping for a message from Arjun. She cursed the lack of an assistant to sort through the chaff.

Footsteps and the sound of giggling were sufficient distraction from the undesirable task of wading through the shit in front of her. “Next up is the galley. It’s where the...magic that brings a family together happens.” She looked up to see a very drunk Alex stumbling into the room half held up by a fair skinned Belter girl.

“Oh shit, sorry Ma’am. I didn’t think you’d still be up.” Alex’s drawl even thicker with inebriation.

“Where’s Bobbie?” she asked, looking pointedly at his new friend. She did not want to make an appearance on Ceres, but if the Martian pilot had left the marine somewhere alone and in trouble she’d make the damn appearance.

“Oh, she’s fine. She’s fine. I wouldn’t have left her, but she said she had to find some guy.” Chrisjen raised an eyebrow at that. “Met an old friend at the…the…fine establishment where Marie works.” He gave the belter girl a wide smile. “What was his name? Tom?”

The girl shrugged and played with the bangles on her wrist.

“Maybe it was Harry. Or Dick. There’s a song in there somewhere, you know.” He began to hum.

Avasarala fixed him with a hard look. “Uh…sorry. We wouldn’t be here at all, but…turns out the lovely Marie isn’t the jealous type.” He was grinning again. “She wanted to see the other beautiful lady in my life.”

Chrisjen’s expression didn’t soften, though she knew he was talking about the ship. “I see.” She wasn’t Alex’s mother and as such it wasn’t really her business what he got up to in his downtime. She supposed he was safer here than getting rolled in a brothel. As she had effectively authorized their shore leave, it didn’t feel right to pull rank as their paying clientele. She was pretty sure the rest of the crew would be keeping their extracurriculars elsewhere, though. “Don’t wake Mei. I’ll be in my quarters.”

As she headed back to the crew deck she caught a few more words between the two.

“Is it gonna be a problem that she’s here?”

“Nah, nah.”

“Good. The name _Contorta,_ very evocative.”

Their voices faded away. “Just wait’ll you see the nerve center—“

Chrisjen stopped and stuck her head in on Mei one last time before heading to her own cabin. It was late, ship’s time, but the middle of the work day in Lovell City. She sat down and directed her terminal to record.

“A few more days, I think, until we reach Luna. I miss you and the little ones.”

She sighed and rubbed absentmindedly at her neck. “I can’t wait to feel the gravity of a real planet again. God, I’ve been terribly thoughtless. I’m sorry you’ve been away from our home for so long.” Tears threatened to fall and she paused, not wanting to cry. She changed the subject. “There’s someone I want you to meet. Her name is Bobbie Draper, and...she saved my life.” A smile crossed her face unbidden. “She’s a Martian marine, unbelievable as that seems. War makes for stranger bedfellows than politics I suppose. If I could, I would keep her forever, but I don’t think I’ll be able to convince her to stay.” The sadness threatened to rear it’s head again and she could practically hear his response in the stillness. _You could convince a turtle it could fly._ “I don’t _want_ to convince her to stay,” she acknowledged.

Bizarre as the image was, Avasarala had come to see the formidable Bobbie Draper as a hothouse flower. She would never say so to the Martian’s face, of course. She valued her life far too much for that. Gobsmackingly beautiful, but move her into the wrong environment and she would wilt and die. Avasarala could bully anyone into doing what she wanted. If she cared enough she could even convince them they wanted to do it. She just couldn’t bring herself to do that to Bobbie.“I would like to see what she will become, not what I would make her.”

She shook her head. “I wish I could talk to you without this goddamn delay. It’s morning on Ceres. I have no idea why Holden has ship’s time set almost 12 hours off every port in the belt. He probably just likes being an itinerant asshole. If I’m lucky, I’ll be asleep by the time you get back to me. Not that it’s likely, there are forty-six messages in my queue and they’ve marked every fucking one ‘urgent’.” She looked directly into the recording terminal with a soft smile. Her chest felt tight. “None of that is your fault, and I shouldn’t take it out on you. I’m sorry. I love you.”

She closed the recording and hit send. She took in a breath and her chest grew tighter. She put a hand over her heart as the sensation intensified and her vision began to darken at the edges. What was happening? She tried to get to her feet but stumbled and fell, the terminal clattering to the floor next to her. Her hand fumbled for it momentarily before she blacked out completely.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update was a bit slower than I expected. The next few weeks are busy for me, but I will try to make sure this is updated weekly! Thanks for sticking with me.


	4. Chapter 4

Chrisjen swallowed painfully, her voice rougher than usual. “I’d like some water.”

Nesah raised his terminal with a shit-eating grin on his face. A light flashed indicating it was recording. “Say it again, Tumang. Tell me how much you like bein rationed while you at it.”

Avasarala licked her lips. “The irony is not lost on me.”

“Irony? It seem like justice to me.”

She shook her head. “I agreed to make you a recording asking for ships, not to be the butt of a joke to pass around amongst your terrorist friends.”

“A little humiliation for da owkwa? You make beltalowda suffer more for it,” he said, his cajoling tone turned bitter.

She shrugged her shoulders, another differentiation between them. It was getting harder to care about playing along, and that was an unusual feeling. She cleared her throat. “I’m of no use to you if I can’t speak.”

They sat, staring each other down, until he gave in with a grunted curse. He stalked from the room, slamming the door shut with a metallic clang. For the first time since she had awoken, Chrisjen found herself alone. She pushed herself to her feet, away from the shabby cot she had been sitting on.

Her head swum and she wondered briefly if these OPA assholes had caused her another round of neurological damage when they’d starved her brain of oxygen. Probably, judging from some of the things she heard coming out of her mouth. Or maybe that was just stress. She was allowed to be fucking stressed about this situation.

She thought about laying down, but decided she needed to stay on her feet despite how wonderful remaining horizontal until her head didn’t feel like she’d been on a bender sounded. Even in the low-g of Ceres she felt weak and unsteady. She was making too many goddamn mistakes, and she was probably going to make more. And then these shithead fuckers were going to kill her.

Nesah stormed back in, his face a thundercloud. For a moment she thought he might hurl the water straight at her head, but in the end he tossed the bottle down onto the cot before turning to leave again.

“You think I don’t understand,” she said quickly and he paused at the door.

“You don’t,” he scoffed.

“You want to better the lives of your people."

“We want to be treated as more than dogs, and you call us terrorists.”

“I did,” she acknowledged, “but you’re right. It’s wrong apply the term to all belters. Setting aside the fact you’ve kidnaped and threatened me,” she equivocated, “I haven’t seen you resort to violence.” He turned back and with two long strides closed the distance between them. “I want to work with you. You just have to see that—”

His fist caught her completely off guard. Not that she would have known how to take a punch she saw coming. As it was, she ended up sprawled on the floor trying to blink away the stars swimming in her vision. The door slammed again and she gave up, letting herself drift in the haze.

 

 

 

_An Hour And A Half Earlier_

Bobbie stared at the three empty shot glasses in front of her. A fourth, still full, stared back.Alex laughed loudly with the woman sitting on the other side of him, not that Bobbie could make out anything she was saying over the din. His line of empty glasses exceeded Bobbie’s by almost a handful. He had drunk his first three with her as they toasted her lost teammates and then the next four with his new friend.

She knew alcohol wouldn’t bring Hilly, Travis, or Sa’id back any more than killing the hybrid had, but she did it anyway because, like that act of suicidal redemption, it rounded the edges of her pain, made it easier to swallow.

Bobbie knew she was being terrible company tonight, well, this morning really. She wondered why Holden didn’t run ships time to match anywhere in the belt. It wasn’t like they were flying to Earth and Mars regularly. Not that it was too inconvenient for their current purposes, like most places near the Ceres docks, businesses such as this one were open to thirsty or weary travelers any time of day.

She watched Alex as he continued to woo the Belter woman who had sidled up to them shortly after they arrived. She would be getting the award for the system's shittiest wingman at the end of this. Regardless, Alex seemed to be doing alright on his own. His new friend didn’t even seem bothered when he would gamely try and get Bobbie back into the conversation. She didn’t mean to be so sullen, but out drinking with the crew of the _Roci_ wasn’t really what she wanted to be doing. She took another look around the bar. It wasn’t a complete dive, and she had the feeling that it was probably a regular stop for the ice-haulers on shore leave. Holden and Naomi had vanished shortly after they arrived, undoubtably holed up in a room somewhere upstairs. Amos and Prax were sitting, heads close, in a corner booth.

She turned back to the final shot waiting for her. When she’d ordered it, she had figured it would be her toast to Cotyar. But the more she stared at it the more she wondered if it wasn’t for Cotyar and Chrisjen both. She figured they were equally to blame for her current predicament. Cotyar for trusting her with Chrisjen’s life and Chrisjen, well, for everything else.

Chrisjen wasn’t dead, but everything had been in flux and they'd been tearing along at colossal speed. Now things were about to come to a violent stop, and no doubt when they hit Luna she’d be hurled out of Chrisjen's life faster than you could say ‘Madam Secretary-General’. Bobbie picked up the glass with a sigh. Forget, 'could she work for Chrisjen Avasarala?'. The cantankerous old woman had pulled Bobbie in with the surety of celestial body’s orbital path. The real question was could she work for the Secretary-General of the UN? Or would Mars actually let her be a marine again? She eyed the line of empties in front of Alex; it was certainly tempting to catch up, but no amount of alcohol was going to solve this problem for her.

“Alex, you doing alright?”

“Yeah, yeah. All good. Thanks for asking, Gunny.” He had a dopey grin on his face. “I think we’re gonna see about a room.”

She gave him what she hoped was an encouraging look. Considering the amount he had drunk she doubted there would be much happening besides sleeping. “Alright then. I’ll probably head back.” She lifted the glass, and Alex nodded to her.

“Wish you were here, spy.” Bobbie downed the shot, grimacing at the burn. She turned to slide off her stool and froze. “—what the hell?” She was drunker than she thought. A thin shock of reddish curls, topping a vaguely familiar silhouette, moved across the room and sat down alone at a table. He raised a hand to call the waitstaff and she was moving towards him before conscious thought to do so had passed through her brain.

She stormed up behind him. Grabbing the pasty-faced man in the tattered, blue, Mao-Kwik uniform by his scruff, she hauled him out of his chair. “Oh god, please don’t kill me!” he sputtered. “Um, uh…B-Bobbie?”

She stared at him in disbelief. “How fuck did you get here, Theo?!”


	5. Chapter 5

Iron and salt lingered on her palate as Chrisjen spat blood onto the floor. She took another sip of water to try to clear the taste and then lay back down, her head turned to the side that wasn’t vying to match the shade of one of her saris. That little fucker. Maybe hitting her had just been an angry outburst, or maybe he was posturing, either with her or among others in his OPA faction. It didn’t matter. Either way it was a mistake and she was going to make him pay.

The door opened but she didn’t bother getting up. A woman she couldn’t quite place walked in. Now this, wasn’t a bad move on Nesah’s part. Send in someone new, a sympathetic ear perhaps, after hurting her. She could see why he had delusions of setting himself up as part of the OPA’s ruling body, a third to Johnson and Dawes.

“Can you sit up?” the woman asked. “We ought to make the recording, if you can.” It clicked. The belter girl with Alex.

Chrisjen rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. “You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t remember your name.”

“Mari.” She pronounced it differently than Alex had, with the emphasis on the first syllable rather than the last. Mari pulled the stool over next to the cot and sat down.

Chrisjen sighed and let her help her up to a sitting position. The OPA operative reached for her face and she jerked her head back with a scowl.

“Unte kowlting gut,” Mari said soothingly, spreading her arms wide. "It's ok." She pulled a sponge cloth from a pocket on her coveralls and held it out.

Chrisjen eyed it. “Why bother?”

Mari shrugged with her hands. “Maybe you don’t want to look like you got run over by a loader, sasa ke?”

She ran her tongue over the split in her lip and held out her hand for the damp cloth. Chrisjen didn’t bother trying to wipe away the blood on her jumpsuit; she just held it gingerly against the side of her face.

Mari procured a terminal from another pocket and handed it over as well.

Chrisjen read through the expected list of demands and instructions and laid the terminal in her lap. She needed more information. “Why me? Why not some other UN official?”

“Nobody else here, Madam.”

“No shit, but this isn’t an official visit. How did you even know I was here?”

“We don't call ourselves the Ears of Ceres for nating. We hear it all.”

“You’ve been tracking my communications? How the fuck did you break the encryption?” Was it someone on the _Rocinante_? That would be a serious fucking problem. Had she misjudged Naomi Nagata? Asking for transports rather than military vessels even seemed like something she might have planned. She dismissed the thought. This was too cloak and dagger. Naomi might be working in opposition to her, but she was straightforward about it.

The Belter made another gesture with her hands. “Didn’t. Just saw your ship lit up like the sun. Many, many encrypted messages going to Earth and back. Someone important must be aboard. Healy ask me to get close enough to see you. When I do, he order the move.” She looked at her quizzically. “You pretty gutsy, Inya. All alone in the heart of the belt.”

Chrisjen snorted. “Mistaking stupidity for bravery gets more people killed than just being stupid in the first place.” She frowned. They hadn’t cracked the encryption, but they had still managed to track her tightbeam comms. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes as a puzzle piece fell into place. They were the ‘ears of Ceres’, literally. That wasn’t just what they called their faction. They worked in the communications relay here, or at least had access to it. She wondered if they were near there. As good a guess as any. “Even so,” she continued, “the manpower’s rarely worth it.”

“Oh?”

“How many people would have been enough to frighten you away? The problem with an entourage is that every time you turn around you’re stepping on someone else’s goddamn toes.”

She laughed. “Bet you wish you had some of those toes now.”

“So you could kill them?”

“Why you so certain I want to kill people?”

“That’s what my experience with the OPA has been.” Chrisjen’s face turned hard. “You kill people. You kill children. There was a five year old girl on my ship. Did you give a thought to that when you kidnapped me?”

It was Mari’s turn to frown. “I didn’t kill anyone. I could have, but I didn’t.”

“That’s good for you.” Chrisjen said. “It means when my security detail gets a hold of you, she might not kill you.”

“She? You just got the one?” The Belter looked unimpressed as she prepped a second terminal to record. “Not gonna be enough unless she some kinda pashang big superhero.”

Chrisjen’s smile was feral, her cut oozing again as the motion stretched it. “She fucking is.”

 

 

 

_An Unendurable Amount Of Time Earlier_

It had taken Theo and Cotyar almost three days to patch up the emergency beacon after their drop ship had been tossed aside by the detonation of the _Guanshiyin,_ and fried by the accompanying EMP burst. Well, mostly Theo. Cotyar had been busy trying to patch himself up. The wound in his side had reopened immediately after the shockwave hit, but fortunately for the both of them, the UNN made sure their ships were well supplied.

Once they were transmitting there was nothing to do but wait until their air and water ran out, wait and worry. So they waited. And then they waited some more.

Cotyar knew the escort ship that had fired on them must have gone after the racing pinnace. The only reason he could imagine they hadn’t been found in the wreckage, even without an active beacon, was that Errinwright’s lackeys had left the area before completing their search.

Worse still was the fact they didn’t return. If they had taken her alive, Avasarala would have convinced them to come back and search the wreckage for them. If they had just killed her…he didn’t want to think about it.

Naturally, he had nothing else to think about. For a week. Not that Theo didn’t talk constantly. Which, while annoying, wasn’t the worst he’d ever been made to suffer. He tried to let it distract him, but his failure was constantly in the back of his mind. Maybe he shouldn’t have sent Avasarala with Bobbie. It wasn’t that he felt his trust in the Martian misplaced, it was that no matter how badass she was, in the end she was just one marine. He might not have survived if he had been piloting, but at times he’d made a convincing argument to himself that death was preferable to once again being ‘the survivor’. Another Avasarala missing or dead on his watch. Everything he owed Charanpal turned to ash.

He had thought that wound had healed. It had scarred, and he had hoped it would be enough to protect him. But now it was open again, the old flesh ripped off with the new. A fresh fire in his chest. It hurt so much he kept checking to see if his actual wound was bleeding again.

When a belter mining ship finally found them they were three quarters of the way through their stores and more than happy to gift most of what they had left to their rescuers. The ride to Ceres was more time in limbo, but at least Cotyar could follow the news and try and glean from it what he could. He could find nothing on the newsfeeds that said Chrisjen Avasarala was dead. If Errinwright had confirmation, Cotyar was certain news of her death would have been broadcast all over the system, along with a variety of incriminating allegations. Hope, that poisonous vine, was winding it’s way back into his heart.

Then came the ceasefire over Io. And damn it if that didn’t have her fingerprints all over it. He knew better than to let baseless optimism get a foothold, but he hadn’t been able to root it out. When he heard that the _Agatha King_ had been destroyed he thought that hope might strangle him. Had she been there? Would he go down that hole all over again?

He locked it away to deal with when he had hard facts and by the time they arrived at Ceres he felt like he could operate at something akin to normal again. His next task was getting himself and Theo home…without attracting any UN attention. He was still a good spy, and until he knew exactly what had gone down he was going to stay off the grid. Being careless now would most likely end him up in prison.

Find transport to Luna that wouldn’t ask questions. It shouldn’t be that hard to do. There were plenty of belters who would look the other way for the right price. A price he could supply thanks to a burn bag he had stashed on Ceres. He was a _very_ good spy.

The good spy in him considered killing Theo. He didn’t want to do it, but Theo was always going to be a danger to his primary mission, if only because the hapless electrician was as guileless as he seemed. He was a fish swimming with sharks. In the end, Cotyar decided it would do well enough just to keep a close eye on him until he had all the details. Fortunately, Theo wasn’t too hard to handle.

_“One more time, what are you going to be doing while I’m at the docks.”_

_“Anything, as long as I’m not talking with anyone. I’m not supposed to talk to anybody.”_

_“Right. Why?”_

_“Because the UN may still want to kill us.”_

_“Good.”_

_“Do you want me to get you anything for dinner?”_

Cotyar perused the listings on the departures board, checked in with the dock master, and spent a solid hour and a half making rounds of the docks as he searched for a likely candidate. He even briefly considered a poorly disguised MCRN Corvette. It didn’t have any identifying markings, and he wondered briefly if it was the ship James Holden had helped himself to. Tempting as it was to find out, it wasn’t worth the risk. It could just as easily be a Martian covert operation, and getting mixed up in that was not something he was looking for. Besides, the name _Rocinante_ hadn’t shown up anywhere on the list of ships in port.

On his second pass of the area he watched two wharfies unload a black body bag off the Martian ship. He gave them a wide birth; he definitely didn’t want to get involved with that one.

He finally settled on a passenger liner scheduled to depart Ceres for Luna in 18 hours. The XO of the ship was happy enough to take his money under the table to secure two seats without running running an ID check. His fake would stand up to inspection, but Theo didn’t have anything but his actual information card. Cotyar just needed to get them to Luna without incident, then Theo could go through customs as himself. At that point Cotyar might just need the distraction. If Errinwright was still in power, the electrician could be in for a few days of uncomfortable scrutiny, but in the end they’d most likely just cut him loose.

Satisfied, he headed back to the rooms they’d rented. “Theo,” he called out as he walked in the door. "I found us a ride."

“Yeah, about that,” came the sound of Theo's nervous voice.

Out of the corner of his eye, Cotyar caught sight of a hulking shape. He went for his gun, but before he could get it free he found his arms pinned to his sides as he was pulled into a crushing bear hug. He grunted and his eyes watered in pain. “Gunshot—” he gasped.

An entirely unrepentant Roberta Draper let him go with a grin. “Chrisjen is going to lose her shit when she sees you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It feels like I've been waiting to post this for an eternity!
> 
> In _Caliban's War_ , Larson is the one who blows the _Agatha King_ NOT Cotyar...so as far as this story is concerned (and for all time damn it) that's what happened. So is it canon? Kind of. Canonslash? It's just a messy muddle of the two, but totally worth it if I get to have Cotyar back. Bobbie and Avasarala assumed he died trying to get off the _Guanshiyin_ , which was certainly show canon until 306. I realize that not working this explanation into the story means I've dropped the ball in my story telling. My apologies for that! I did leave it intentionally vague in the hopes of providing a pleasant surprise.


	6. Chapter 6

Bobbie stood at parade rest while Cotyar and Theo gathered their things, resisting the urge to rock onto her toes. The mix of alcohol and the late hour were catching up to her, but the idea of presenting Avasarala with Cotyar had added adrenaline into the mix and the desire to be in motion was like an itch building under her skin. As it was, she was losing the fight to keep the grin from her face.

“On a first name basis now, are you?” Cotyar asked, his tone deceptively mild.

“Aww, jealous she likes me better?”

Cotyar shook his head with a knowing smile. “No, just wondering how much rope she’s given you to hang yourself with.”

“Oh you’re a riot,” she responded.

“Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you.”

“Too little, too late Spy.”

“So, am I supposed to be a surprise?” he asked and hefted his bag.

Bobbie didn’t miss the flash of discomfort that crossed his face. “Do you want me to carry that?”

“Oh, thanks!” Theo said, holding out his own bag to her. Bobbie stared him down for a beat before turning back to Cotyar. “Oh. Um, right.” Theo quickly slung the offending item over his head.

“We should get you into the _Roci’s_ medbay. Make sure that’s healing right.”

He nodded and handed her the bag gratefully. “I won’t complain. Between Avasarala’s attempts and my own, there’s no telling what sort of tangled mess my insides are.” He took a measured breath. “Can I give you some advice?”

Bobbie crossed her arms, bracing herself. “No one’s stopping you.”

“She doesn’t like surprises.”

“Well, this one's not on purpose. She didn’t answer when I called, but it’s late for us. She might have fallen asleep with Mei.”

“Who’s Mei?” Theo asked, gamely trying to follow along.

“The daughter of a belter botanist. We rescued her on Io.” Bobbie glanced sideways at Cotyar before continuing, but he wasn't giving anything away. “She’s five,” she grinned.

Cotyar’s mouth twisted wryly as he looked at the marine. “Seems she’s decided to make a habit of picking up strays.”

Bobbie flipped him off.

 

On the way back to the _Rocinante,_ Bobbie filled Cotyar in on what he’d missed. A frown appeared on his face when Bobbie explained it had been James Holden and his crew who saved them from the UNN escort ship. What were the odds of two poorly disguised Martian corvettes being docked at Ceres right now? Sure enough, when Bobbie brought them to a halt, they stood in front of the berth he had circumvented earlier in the day. “This is your ship?”

“Well, not mine. Holden’s.”

“Who died?”

“What?”

“On this ship, who died?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He put his hand on her elbow, pulling her aside. “When I was here an hour ago, I saw two belters, dockers I assumed, moving a body bag off _this_ ship.”

Bobbie stared at him as her brain worked to process the information. Her eyes widened a fraction and then she was pushing past him. He looked briefly around the immediate area, pulled his gun and followed her to the main airlock. Theo hurried to keep up.

The airlock cycled and Bobbie thew herself down the ladder. She paused momentarily on the galley deck to call out “Chrisjen?”, before descending again to the crew quarters. She opened a door and looked in but said nothing. Cotyar caught sight of a small girl asleep on the lower bunk before Bobbie had closed the door and was moving again.

She entered another room and called, “Chrisjen!” her voice tight with worry. There was a cracking sound and she stopped to look and see what she had stepped on. She reached down and picked a hand terminal off the floor, straightening slowly.

“Who knew—” Cotyar began but didn’t finish.

Bobbie spun around and he stepped quickly out of her way. She plowed through Theo and began climbing up to ops. “A couple of extremely grateful belter families, three Martian ensigns, a whole bunch of assholes at the UN,” she rattled off, falling silent as she reached the top of the ladder. “Goddamnit, Alex.” The pilot was sprawled on the ops deck. She bent over to check his pulse, but she hardly needed to. His breathing was loud and steady. She hauled him up. “What the fuck happened?”

He mumbled something incoherently.

“Errinwright?”

“Arrested. Theo, come with me,” she ordered as she threw the other Martian over her shoulder into a fireman’s carry. Theo trailed behind her as she moved back down the ladder headed for the medbay. She deposited Alex in a chair, slid his arm into the cuff and started a scan. “Stay with him. If something’s wrong or he wakes up, come get us.”

She scaled the steps two at a time back up to Ops and pulled up the internal video to check on Mao. He was still locked in. “You said an hour?” she asked.

Cotyar nodded, “Yes.”

The security feeds had four in the buffer. She ran the feed back until they saw Alex come aboard with the Belter. Bobbie stood, jaw clenched, as the woman used Alex to access the controls and then injected the hapless man with something. There was no feed in the crew quarters, but the spy and the marine were able to watch the woman as she carefully monitored the controls for a few minutes before she opened the airlock for another Belter, a dark skinned male this time.

“What the fuck was she doing?” Bobbie pulled up a second display off to the side of the still running security footage. “Fuck! She overloaded the air scrubbers and cut the oxygen feed to our quarters.”

"How long?" Cotyar growled out.

"Long enough." 

The second intruder handed her a pair of coveralls which she quickly pulled on over the skimpier outfit she had been wearing.

“Yeah, that’s them,” he confirmed.

The two of them laid a body bag out in the hall outside Avasarala’s door and then opened it. Cotyar knew what was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier to watch. They carried the unmoving woman out and laid her down carefully in the bag. One of them checked her pulse and nodded with a fist.

“She’s alive,” Cotyar breathed. It was almost too much. The cool detachment he had clung to as Bobbie had begun yelling for Avasarala wavered and he let his head fall into his hands, his pistol still clutched tightly. He had let them walk right by him. “Okay, okay.” Cotyar said as much to himself as to Bobbie, “What do we know? We know what general direction they took her. We can identify their faces.” He dropped his hands and tucked the gun back into it’s holster. “If they’re OPA…they’re definitely OPA…that is a problem. Anderson Dawes has his fingers in every part of Ceres, including security.”

Bobbie was silent and staring, her eyes fixed on the frozen image in front of her, her hands clenched into fists. A tone sounded and a light began flashing on the console indicating an incoming message. Bobbie pressed accept and sucked in a sharp breath as Avasarala’s battered face appeared on the screen.

“Captain Draper, by now, I assume you are aware of my absence. It’s important for you to follow this communique with your usual diligence. Your orders are to relay communications to your superiors at the UN, and _only_ them. I understand that there may be some delay due to distance, but I would appreciate it if you would see that the message arrives, personally. At this time, I am working to build,” she paused, her tongue running along her swollen lip, “a relationship with some members of the Ears of Ceres faction of the OPA. They have several requests…”


	7. Chapter 7

“The sooner this can be resolved the better. My hosts are listening to this plan of action for now, so please understand that these lines of communication are fucking key. Any significant delays will result in their demands being made in a more public forum.”

 

Avasarala’s message ended and Bobbie immediately played it again. Cotyar had her play it a third time. Bobbie felt a stillness settle over her. The restless nerves she had suffered during the walk from Cotyar’s rented rooms to the _Rocinante_ had coalesced into a solid knot just below her breastbone. And it sat there, a heavy, deadening ache.

This was all her fault. It didn’t matter that the most powerful woman on Earth hadn’t expected the marine to do Cotyar’s job, or that Bobbie had been brought into all this because she was a pawn in whatever fucked up game Avasarala had been playing at that particular moment. All that mattered was that, sometime during that hectic flight from the _Guanshiyin_ , her enemy had become just hers. And _hers_ had just called out for help.

Bobbie was immensely grateful that Cotyar had survived, but she was also horrified that his return had occurred when he would be witness to this royal fuck up. He was someone Avasarala had actually chosen to keep her safe, as opposed to someone she was forced to make do with. If anyone would help her rearrange the whole goddamn system to get the politician safely back, it was him. Only, until then, her fuck up was guaranteed to hurt him, and he’d done nothing to deserve it.

She needed to do something productive or she was going to break something, and Cotyar didn’t need a fractured nose added to his list of woes. She turned to head down the ladder, only to be stopped by his hand at her shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“Equipment. Armor, weapons, medical…where the fuck do you think I’m going?”

“Language.” He said reflexively.

“Fuck off,” she snapped and shoved his hand away.

“Just wait, wait a minute.” He held his hands up placatingly. “Avasarala sent the message to you, not someone in the UN, not the actual captain of this ship. You. She wouldn’t have done that unless there was something in it you needed to know.”

“She told us who was holding her. And she sure as fuck told me to come get her; because I don’t answer to anyone at the UN but her.”

“Don’t let the sudden promotion go to your head,” he bit out before taking in a deep breath. “How many of them are there? How much territory do they control? Where is it? We shouldn’t go in without more information.” Bobbie’s hands clenched into fists as Cotyar tried to refocus her.

“I don’t know any of those things.”

“No, but I have contacts I can use to find out.”

“Then what are you standing around talking to me for?”

“I need to know if there’s anything else in that recording that seems wrong to you.”

“You mean aside from the fact that someone’s been beating her up?” she retorted.

“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth, “besides that.”

Bobbie stopped and thought for a long moment. She stepped back up to the panel and started the playback again. It was hard to focus on Avasarala’s words when all Bobbie could see was her face, bruised and bleeding, so she closed her eyes and listened. “I’m not the captain,” she began, “and if she actually wants me to pass this on to someone at the UN she’s done a lousy job of telling me where it needs to go. There’s no one at the UN I would consider a superior, aside from her.”

“I doubt she wants this message sent anywhere.”

“I hate this, and she knows it. The ‘saying one thing, meaning another’ bullshit. She’s usually straightforward with me. She’s…she’s not swearing.” Bobbie opened her eyes and looked at Cotyar. “She didn’t curse at all, not until the very end.”

He nodded.

“The lines of communication are key? What does that mean?” Bobbie queued the recording up again and they listened a fifth time.

“Follow the communique, relay communications, they’re listening. She thinks they’re at Ceres’ communication hub.”

Bobbie nodded in agreement with Cotyar’s analysis. “That’s it then, let’s go.”

“I know you’re practically invincible in that armor of yours, but going in blind is still a bad idea. Give me an hour to get the intel,” he pleaded.

“My armor’s trashed,” She said reluctantly before starting down the ladder. “One hour.”

 

Bobbie went straight to the armory. She dug out an MCRN armored environmental suit of a likely size and began checking it over. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as her Goliath, but it would have to do. She was rummaging for a second suit when Cotyar came down the ladder.

He watched her organize the equipment quietly. “I’ve been there you know.”

“Been where?” she asked without looking up from her task.

He rubbed his face with one hand and started again. “When you’re responsible for someone’s life and the lines get blurred…sometimes it doesn’t end well.” He sighed. “With Avasarala especially, she’s as manipulative as she is magnetic, and if you’re not careful—”

“Is this is the part where you tell me not to let my personal feelings get in the way or the part where you mark your territory?” She said straightening, her arms crossed.

The edge of Cotyar’s mouth turned up. “Either of those would be a waste of time, and I prefer to only have useless arguments with one person I have to work with."

“Then what’s your point?” The marine’s hackles were up now and she struggled to be less combative.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Bobbie froze. She knew he was trying to make her feel better, but the statement only made her angrier as a wave of guilt rose up. “You wouldn’t have let it happen.”

He shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. If you think for one minute she has _ever_ made my job easy, you don’t know her half as well as you think. Just keep in mind that I’m a big boy and I knew what I was getting into when I signed up.”

“Alright,” she finally acknowledged. “You can carry your own damn baggage,” she said and she turned back to begin rechecking the armor.

 

 

 

_Fifty-Four Minutes Later_

Mari had left her when the messages they wanted were complete. Chrisjen was careful to note the time-stamp on the terminal they handed her before they finished. At that point she had been gone a little over an hour. But her sense of time had stretched and warped once she had been left alone. She couldn’t be sure how long it had been since then. Surely not that long; she didn’t feel hungry nor had she even needed to pee. How long before Bobbie returned to the _Rocinante_?

Chrisjen was banking on the Martian marine getting ahold of that recording before Holden. It was the best she could do under the circumstances. Holden was a goddamn loose cannon who would want to announce to the whole fucking system what was happening, and all she needed was another shit-fest conflict to defuse. Of course, that was the optimistic view. It assumed she wouldn’t be the first to die in the bloodbath Earth would turn Ceres into.

She also had to keep Healy Nesah from letting all of the belt know he was holding her hostage, and that was getting harder. Considering his previous claims that he intended to detain her indefinitely she was surprised when an agitated Nesah returned to harangue her. “Where are my ships?”

Avasarala looked at him in surprise.

He took a step towards her, waving his terminal full of flight data in her face. She flinched back involuntarily. “No one change course for Ceres!”

“How long has it been since you sent Captain Draper my message?”

He began pacing in the small room. “I know how long it take for a message to reach Earth.”

“And I know how long it takes for bureaucracy to function,” she said, allowing exasperation to seep into her voice.

He scowled. “I want proof this captain of yours sent the message.”

“Then let me talk to her,” she pleaded. He paused briefly, indecision plain on his face. Something or someone was putting pressure on him and since he wasn’t demanding she do anything about it, it wasn’t Bobbie…yet. Cotyar’s warning to her when she had reached out to Fred Johnson rang in her ears, _the OPA leaks like a sieve._ Someone else knew she was here. Bobbie had better fucking hurry. “Talking to people is how I get things done. If you let me, I can be more than a bargaining chip—”

The door behind Nesah opened and a new operative appeared. “We got a problem.”

Healy stopped his pacing. “And tu pensa is a gut idea to talk about it in front of the Inya?” he asked angrily.

“Sorry, Bosmang, is about her. Thought you want to know right away,” the Belter said apologetically.

Nesah walked over to him and they spoke in low, rapid Lang Belta. Chrisjen only caught a few words, but what she did hear made her grit her teeth. His subordinate closed the door and Healy turned back to Avasarala, a frown on his face. “You been holding out on me.”

Chrisjen said nothing, merely waiting for him to continue.

“Is all over the newsfeed. Madam Secretary-General,” he said slowly.

“Acting,” she replied, outwardly calm. “I haven’t even been sworn in yet.” Inwardly, she roundly cursed whomever had leaked the one fucking thing that was guaranteed to make this situation worse. Couldn’t those idiots have held off for one more goddamned day? If she lived through this, she’d find them and have their balls for breakfast.

“‘The UN doesn’t deal with terrorists’, sasa ke? You _are_ the pashang UN,” he snarled. “You give the orders. You gonna get me a fleet. Now.”

She swallowed the profanity that wanted to leap from her tongue. “That isn’t how it works; the UN isn’t a dictatorship.”

He grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet. “Then maybe mi pensa you not so useful after all.”

The second man returned carrying a large black bag which he threw on the floor.

Avasarala swallowed hard again, “What the fuck is that?”

“We gotta move. Lay down.” He pointed at gapping maw the open zipper made in the stiff, dark material.

Chrisjen shook her head, fighting the sudden fear that settled in her gut. “Fuck that, I can walk.”

“You think Dawes people just gonna let you walk out? You better off with mi, and I say they not gonna see you.”

Intellectually, she knew that what he said made sense but she couldn’t stop her rising panic. She pulled back against his grip, heart pounding. “I’m not getting in that fucking thing.”

“Too bad, paxoníseki.” Healy waved at the other man and the darker skinned Belter manacled her other bicep.

“Fuck you!” she shouted. She rocked back on her heals to engage her mag boots as she tried to dig in against the two men. “I will scream my fucking head off.”

Nesah seized her by the throat with his other hand. “Get me some tape.” The other man let go of her left arm and moved toward the door. Chrisjen pried with her freed hand at the fingers tightening around her neck. “You fucking cunts!” she gasped.

The sound of gunfire made all three of them start. Shouting filtered from the room beyond and Healy loosened the pressure on her windpipe. He yanked her in front of him as Avasarala sucked in air, coughing harshly. She was so much smaller than the Belter, she barely came up to his shoulder. He had to pick her up off the floor to make her body an effective shield and she felt her boots disengage as he jerked her off her feet. His arm compressed her ribs and diaphragm painfully and, despite the low-g, her suspended weight was still enough to make her fight for each breath.

An explosion reverberated through the door, the metal continuing to ring as the sounds behind it faded away. Nesah pulled his gun and gestured the other Belter forward. The ill-fated man opened the door to peek around it and staggered as it was flung forcefully back toward him striking his head. Three shots echoed in the small space and he slumped to the floor.

“Pashang Pomang!” Neash exclaimed, startled by the large, armored Martian now filling the doorway. He lifted the pistol up to the side of Chrisjen’s face.“What Mars want with us, ówala?”

Avasarala tried to speak, but her breath passed uselessly over her bruised larynx. Her eyes fluttered shut as Bobbie’s hardened voice came from the anonymous helmet’s amplifier. “Listen carefully, this can go one of two ways. Either let go of Madam Avasarala and walk out of here alive, or die here.”

“How ‘bout these two ways? Drop your gun or she dead right now.”

Chrisjen inhaled and tried again. “Don’t let this asshole—” she managed weakly. Nesah pressed the muzzle of the gun harder against her temple in response, eliciting a grunt of pain.

Bobbie slowly lowered her assault rifle and cleared the darkened visor so that her face was visible. She placed the weapon on the ground and held her arms away from her body as she straightened, looking as non-threatening as an armored woman of her size possibly could.

“Get out of my way.”

The marine backed away carefully, maintaining the distance between them. “You’re making a mistake.” Bobbie’s eyes never left Nesah’s, her hands still held wide. “I don’t need a gun to kill you,” she taunted as he carried Avasarala through the doorway.

“In that case…” He turned his gun on the Martian.

“No!” Chrisjen cried hoarsely, struggling anew against his hold.

A shadow was melting out of the wall next to the doorway. It extended its arm and by the time she registered it was even there, the gun in its hand was against Nesah’s head. Avasarala turned away instinctively, her eyes squeezed shut. The report of the pistol deafened her and then she was falling.

Bobbie was in motion before the sound died away. She caught Chrisjen as the second armored figure yanked Healy Nesah’s dead weight unceremoniously away from her. The politician glanced down at the stunned expression on his face, and then buried her head in Bobbie’s chest.

Chrisjen took deep, shuddering breaths. She was not going to breakdown here; she just needed a fucking moment to pull herself together. Bobbie was gently peeling her away though. The marine said something muffled she couldn’t make out, her ears still ringing.

She shook her head as Bobbie mouthed something again. “I can’t hear a fucking thing.” The Martian slid her backpack to the floor and began to pull an Autodoc out of the bag but Avasarala stilled her, placing a hand over hers. “We can’t stay here.”

Bobbie spoke again her hands going to either side of Chrisjen’s face, inspecting the swelling. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” she insisted, pressing Bobbie’s hands down. The politician finally looked up at the man who was nodding to her marine, his dark visor turning towards her as soon as her attention shifted to him. He raised his hands to work his helmet free, and Chrisjen’s grip on Bobbie’s hand became a vice, unshed tears stinging her eyes, as Cotyar’s smirking face came into view.

She was fucking hallucinating. “Shit.”


	8. Chapter 8

“We’ve got you, Chrisjen.” Bobbie reluctantly eased Avasarala away, fighting the urge to tighten her arms further around the shaking shoulders. “Are you alright?”

The other woman shook her head, her brow furrowed. When she spoke her voice was louder than necessary. “I can’t hear a fucking thing.”

“Okay, let’s get you checked out.” The marine began rummaging through her pack, but Chrisjen’s hand had found hers and she stopped, inexorably frozen by the light touch.

“We can’t stay here.”

Bobbie looked to Cotyar. “Your assessment, spy?”

Even filtered through the helmet, she could hear his tone becoming lighter, the tension of the previous hour beginning to bleed away. “I hate to give her the satisfaction of being right, but we shouldn’t stick around. We didn’t shut down every communication coming and going from Ceres, but even if this section only houses the backups, someone’s bound to notice.”

Bobbie took Chrisjen’s head in her hands and turned her gently from side to side. She tried to get a good look at her pupils, but the politician was already trying to push her away. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You thought you were fine when you were bleeding into your brain too.” Bobbie muttered.

“She’s nothing if not consistent,” Cotyar said with more humor than Bobbie would have expected to hear, considering the subject. She understood the feeling, even if she thought relief was maybe making them all a little hysterical.

He pulled his helmet off, a grin spreading over his face. “Whoa,” Bobbie said in surprise as Chrisjen’s nails dug into her hand through her gloves. She looked back at the stunned expression on the the older woman’s face.

“Shit.”

Cotyar was still grinning. “I think I should probably be offended by that.”

Bobbie bit back a laugh,“You’re the one who said she didn’t like surprises.” She was definitely getting too punchy. She had insisted they leave as soon as Cotyar’s contact had come back with a bare minimum of intel and the metabolizer she had taken hadn’t quite cleared the alcohol from her system. They were halfway there, just get back to the _Roci_ then they could all be as delirious as they liked.

“Fuck.” Avasarala squeezed her eyes shut, not lessening her unremitting grip on Bobbie’s hand as her breathing became more irregular. Cotyar glanced at Bobbie, amused puzzlement on his face and Avasarala’s lashes flicked open again, her eyes filled with tears that pooled rather than fell. “ _Fuck._ ”

“Would you please do something to put her out of her misery?”

“I don’t know,” he said trying in vain to affect petulance, but hopelessly unable to wipe the euphoric expression from his face. “The prodigal son returns and the only thing out of her mouth is profanity?”

Bobbie smacked him on the shoulder when he persisted in staring. “Seriously, she’s about to cut off the circulation to my trigger finger and I may still need that.”

Cotyar’s rapturous smile widened still further as he stepped forward and pulled Avasarala into a hug. She stiffened momentarily and then melted against his chest with a hiccuped breath. “I mean, not even a ‘Good to see you Cotyar. I’m so glad you’re not dead,’” he said lightly.

“Eventually she _is_ going to be able hear you, you know.”

“Can’t you just let me enjoy being able to have the last word for once?”

“Not sure you deserve it if you have to cheat to win.”

The marine surveyed the damage to the Ceres’ secondary communications center with a professional eye. The flashbangs they’d employed hadn’t caused too much structural damage, though the concussive force had trashed the systems closest to the detonation. Most of the damage was of the flesh and blood variety. Six Belters lay dead, which Bobbie thought was a suspiciously small number to have orchestrated Avasarala’s abduction.

She left Avasarala in Cotyar’s arms and stepped into the room they had been holding her in. It was a glorified storage closet that now held nothing more than a grubby cot and the HRP they had used to get Chrisjen in unseen. Bobbie picked up her assault rifle and double checked that it was still set to single fire.

She spun around at the sound of a door in the outer room opening. Cotyar pulled Avasarala to the floor and Bobbie stalked forward, weapon raised. She wasn’t surprised to see Alex’s date walk in, and she let the flush of anger that raced through her harden her voice. “Don’t move. I will not hesitate to kill you.” Mari froze at the command of the armed and armored woman, her hand halfway to her belt. Bobbie closed with her rapidly. “Hands on your head.” The Belter complied and Bobbie stripped her of both hand terminal and weapon.

“Fo why you do this ting, ke?” Mari began and then her face fell with a groan.

“Wait.” Avasarala’s voice came from behind Bobbie and she tilted her head back without taking her eyes off her target. “She had the recordings they made of me. I want them.”

“Where are they?” Bobbie asked.

Mari looked sullenly at the Martian. “On da terminal.”

Bobbie held the item back and felt Cotyar pluck it from her grip. “Check it please,” the politician instructed him.

Cotyar worked in silence for several minutes before responding, “I’m in. They’re here. Did you copy them?” he asked the Belter.

“No, but why you gonna believe mi?”

Bobbie was slightly surprised to see Cotyar step into her field of view and wave her back. She turned to Avasarala, the older woman’s eyes red-rimmed, but clear.

“Mei and Alex. Are they alive?”

Bobbie nodded in affirmation, “Yes.”

“Then she gets to live.” She looked at Mari with something akin to pity on her face. “I did warn you.”

Bobbie lowered her weapon partially, but didn’t take her eyes off the Belter.

Mari frowned as she contemplating speaking. “You go out there,” she began slowly, “you be on da pashang felota. Zánkomang wear da badge and da split circle.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bobbie asked.

“Nesah say Dawes know she here,” she replied pointing a finger in Avasarala’s direction. “Star Helix come, but mi pensa they rather she dead, sasa ke?”

Chrisjen shook her head still trying to clear her ears. “Did she say Dawes?”

Cotyar nodded.

“Fuck.”

“Along with a few other important things you probably want to know.”

Avasarala continued as if she hadn’t heard him. She probably hadn’t. Bobbie realized she was only asking yes or no questions. “Is there another way out? One that avoids the security feeds?”

Mari signed a no and the politician glanced at Cotyar for confirmation.

“Goddamnit. I’d appreciate it if no one would try to kill me for five fucking minutes.” She squeezed her eyes shut, a pained look on her face. “You’re going to have to carry me out of here.”

Realization dawned on Bobbie’s face as Chrisjen moved back towards the storage closet and pulled up the human remains pouch and draped it across the cot. She didn’t bother trying to disguise her disgust.

Bobbie stepped up to her and nudged her arm gently as she shook her head in an exaggerated fashion to make it visible in her helmet. “You don’t have to.”

Chrisjen’s eyes met hers and she spoke clearly. “I would like to avoid an all out diplomatic incident.”

The sudden urge to laugh again almost overwhelmed Bobbie. “Thank you for being specific.” Bobbie’s smile quickly turned into a frown. Chrisjen would be effectively blind and deaf and she was taking deep shaky breaths as if she was already fighting claustrophobia. The Martian dug in her pack for high pressure injector and pointed at Chrisjen’s ear. “This ought to help some.”

Chrisjen looked at her questioningly and then shouted as Bobbie drove the plunger down into her arm. “Jesus Christ, that fucking hurt!”

“Sorry,” Bobbie shrugged apologetically before turning to Cotyar.

He had something pulled up on a hardwired terminus which he disseminated before closing the screen down. “That ought to corrupt any of their video data for the last day.” He handed Bobbie Mari’s terminal. “We don’t need this anymore either.”

Bobbie walked up to the Belter and handed back her device. “You got a pass today. But if you ever come near Madam Avasarala again you won’t get a second chance. Do you understand?”

Mari nodded a fist as she began backing out of the room. “Mi sasa, superhero. Mi sasa.”

Bobbie waited until the Belter had left before she moved back to Avasarala. Cotyar had her almost completely zipped up. Her head and neck were still exposed and she was back to taking deep breaths with her eyes closed. Bobbie put a hand on her shoulder and she opened her eyes. “This isn’t going to be comfortable, but I’m just going to have to pick you up to be as quick as we can.”

“I trust you.” Chrisjen said.

Bobbie tried to ignore the look on her face as Cotyar sealed the bag. Bobbie pulled her forward and lifted her up, making sure to settle Chrisjen’s hips against her shoulder so she would be able to breathe without too much difficulty. “Lead the way, spy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still not super happy with everything in this one, but I just don't know what to change to fix it. So here it is. At least it moves the plot forward some.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was edited on a phone, so apologies for any glaring errors I may have missed.

Chrisjen kept her eyes shut. It didn’t make any sense since she couldn’t see anything anyway, but for the moment it gave her the illusion of control. And she was going to cling to that damn illusion knowing full well what it was. It was that or she was going to completely lose it and the knot in her throat was going to erupt into blood curdling screams.

The ringing in her ears might be improving; it was hard to tell. Cotyar and Bobbie were mostly quiet as they moved. If nothing else, whatever Bobbie had given her had finally cleared the persistent headache she’d suffered since she had woken. She finally felt like she could think; she could see how the pieces were arrayed. What was happening on Ceres? How had this clusterfuck even been possible? If Mari was to be believed her OPA splinter had just happened upon Chrisjen’s communications, and then they just happened to be prepared to organize her abduction almost as soon as they had docked. Bullshit.

Someone had been watching the _Rocinante_ , someone who knew she was aboard. Suddenly, Holden’s irritating need to maintain radio silence didn’t seem so paranoid. The question then followed, was someone in the UN using the OPA to make a move against her, or was a true power player in the OPA responsible?

She hadn’t made her location a secret. Until Sorrento-Gilles had decided to fuck off, her being away from Earth had been an inconvenience, not a security concern. She was aboard a Martian made gunship; she had her very own Martian made marine, for fuck’s sake. Considering the situation, she should have been safe as houses.

Healy Nesah was a small time player with delusions of greatness. Someone had preyed on his ego and Chrisjen was willing to bet the ‘Ears of Ceres’ had one or more members who were actually working for Dawes. That was something else Chrisjen needed to deal with once she was loose. The intelligence they had on Dawes was out of date. If he had moved to take outright control of Star Helix and she didn’t know it, someone had fucked up. It meant Ceres was Earth’s in name only and Anderson Dawes would have no reason to keep her alive. It would be far too easy to have her accidentally killed in the crossfire when station security tried heroically to rescue her from her OPA kidnappers. The more chaos on Earth, the easier consolidating power in the outer planets would be.

Why would Dawes be willing to make that move now? The MCRN and the UNN were weakened by the recent war, but by no means were they crippled. What had changed? The same thing that had changed everything. The fucking proto-molecule. What had Nesah said? Fred Johnson had the weapon, and Dawes had a scientist.

Fuck.

It had to be one of Mao’s.

Fuck! Chrisjen’s eyes snapped open and she pushed herself up on Bobbie’s back. “Bobbie!”

“Quiet,” the marine hissed.

Bobbie’s step hesitated and then Chrisjen heard gunfire. The sounds were muted by the bag and the persistent ringing in her ears, but she could certainly hear enough now to understand the shouting between her escort.

“Back!”

“I know!”

Gunfire sounded again right next to her from Bobbie’s returning fire.

“That way was a dead end. I don’t want to get cornered.”

“This is their territory,” the marine argued. “They’ll be able to funnel us wherever they want. We need to pick the most defensible position and call for backup.”

“I have one more card up my sleeve.”

“Then hurry up and play it!” Chrisjen felt Bobbie twist to the side, sliding her forward against her chest, probably in an effort to narrow their profile. Then she stumbled forward with a grunt, her arm tightening around the trapped woman, but keeping her feet. “I’m fine! Keep moving.” The sounds of gunfire were receding in the distance, but in contrast, Bobbie’s labored breathing was getting louder.

“Put me down,” Chrisjen shouted. The marine ignored her. “Bobbie!”

“Not now!” Bobbie barked.

“Shit,” she muttered.

Bobbie’s grip slackened slightly as she moved Chrisjen back up onto her shoulder and began to climb, but tightened again as soon as they were back to running on the flat. Finally they stopped. Bobbie let her down and pulled the zipper open. Chrisjen’s eyes went straight to the other woman, but she couldn’t see any obvious wound in the dim light of the construction access corridor they had stopped in. “Are you hurt?” The marine raised a fist and rotated it back and forth a single time. Was that supposed to mean yes or no? Chrisjen wasn’t sure.

“So, was the ambush meant for us or the other OPA faction?” Cotyar asked.

“Does it matter?” Bobbie retorted.

“We’re in an artificial blind spot, courtesy of SIGINT, but it’s only good if no one comes looking in person. If they meant to catch out Nesah’s group that might give us more time.”

“Probably not us. At least some of them were using non-lethal rounds,” she reasoned.

“This is all Mao. He’s lost his bid with Earth and Mars, now he’s trying the Belt.” Chrisjen interrupted their discussion.

“How?” Bobbie’s eyes widened. “Is she serious?” she asked Cotyar.

“You tell me. You’re the one who gave her the amphetamine-pain killer combo.”

Chrisjen couldn’t answer the how, she just knew he was the missing piece of the puzzle. “Who’s with Mei?”

“Prax and Amos.”

Chrisjen paused in thought, but Bobbie must have thought she still couldn’t hear.

“Prax and Amos,” she said louder.

Chrisjen nodded, she wanted Mao alive. He had to be alive to suffer. “That motherfucker must have a way to communicate with someone; he let the OPA know I was here. Don’t tell Amos; he’ll just kill him,” she said as she wriggled out of the stiff plastic, pushing it to the side.

Cotyar’s face was grim. “I may kill him myself.”

“You boys are gonna have to get in line.” Bobbie said, her voice tight. Chrisjen eyed her again. The marine was still on one knee in front of her, her breathing shallow. “You really think he has a transmitter we wouldn’t have picked up?”

Cotyar frowned thoughtfully. “It might not act like a traditional transmitter. Send it to someone with a specialized receiver…If anyone has the tech it’s going to be him.”

“So going back to the _Roci_ is out unless we’re immediately ready to break orbit.” Bobbie pointed out, wincing as she inhaled too deeply.

“Bobbie, you stay here with Avasarala. Call Holden and get him off his ass.”

Chrisjen’s breath caught as Cotyar checked his gun and straightened. “Where are you going?”

“Oh, you know, a little recon here, a little diversion there. Best see if I can find us a clear route.” He smiled reassuringly at her.

She reached up and clutched at his hand. “Don’t you fucking die. That’s an order.”

“Don’t worry,” he said lightly, “I fully intend to outlive you; I’m really enjoying getting in the last word.”

“Sounds like more cheating,” the marine huffed.

He smirked at Bobbie. “That’s not cheating. That’s just playing the long game.”

Chrisjen shook her head. “You assume I won’t have your obituary prepared prior to my demise.”

Cotyar turned back to her in surprise and then his face split into a wide grin again. “I’ll be back.”

Chrisjen nodded reluctantly and watched him go before she turned on Bobbie. “Sit.” Her concern ratcheted up another notch as the marine unfastened and removed her helmet before leaning forward onto her hands with a grimace.

“What the fuck happened?”

“I took a hit badly. I’ll live.”

Chrisjen was partially mollified that Bobbie’s face didn’t have the ashy pallor that came with massive blood loss. “Because of me.”

“No, because this armor’s meant to take live fire in a shipboard engagement. It’s good against pinpoint damage that won’t hole a ship. It’s garbage against large, diffuse impacts.” She made another low sound as she tried to straighten up.

“And that means what?”

“Sandbag rounds, non-lethal. Which at least some of our friends were using.”

“Where are you hurt?”

Bobbie tried to move her arm back toward her right side, but dropped it again with a grunt. Chrisjen moved around behind her so she could run her hands along that side, stopping where the armored plates had deformed, knifing upward against Bobbie’s ribcage. She had known it wasn’t Bobbie’s power armor, but she was struck momentarily by the fact that even if she only weighed a third her usual, Bobbie had still managed to carry her easily while fighting. She had not stopped, even after being injured. As if Chrisjen needed another reminder of what a remarkable woman the marine was. “Can it be fixed?”

“If I had the right tools, but I don’t.”

“And if you take it off…”

“They may decide to switch to lethal rounds.”

“Fuck.” She ran her hands over the warped carapace again and then sat down next to the marine.

Bobbie shook her head, pushed herself up and began unfastening it. “There are three clips on that side I’ll need your help with.”

“Are you sure?” Chrisjen said, unable to mask the worry in her voice.

“For now. Better to be able to breathe.” With Bobbie’s instruction Avasarala helped her the rest of the way out of the chest piece, her sigh of relief every bit as loud as Bobbie’s as it came free. Bobbie shrugged it off and began hunting through her pack. She pulled out what looked like a metal shim and then the auto doc. Was she hurt worse than she had let on?

“Let me see.” Chrisjen pulled up the thin tank Bobbie wore under her gear, her hands retracing their motions, unimpeded this time by the barricade of the Martian armor. Ugly purple bruising that marred her smooth skin was already apparent along the lower edge of her ribs. “Is anything broken?”

Bobbie shook her head and twisted to face her. The Martian reached down and took her hand to inspect the cuff of her racing suit. “Slip your arm out.”

Why was she still worried about Chrisjen? “I told you, I’m fine.”

Bobbie looked at her flatly. “Humor me.”

The older woman tried to repress the pout she knew was childish and pulled the zipper of the racing suit down. She tugged on the end of her sleeve to slide her arm free, pushing the high collared suit down past her shoulder to bare her arm, exposing wine colored silk and an expanse of skin in doing so. Bobbie pushed the cuff of the autodoc up her forearm and started the diagnostic. Chrisjen’s jaw tightened as the device did, it’s tiny needles piercing the skin.

While the program ran Bobbie pulled her armor towards her and began using the shim to pry at the twisted plate. It eventually came free with a loud snapping sound and Bobbie picked it up and tossed it into her bag. She pulled the armor back on and tested her movement briefly but didn’t immediately button herself back in. “Aside from the gaping hole, just like new.” she shrugged.

She pulled out her terminal and put the call through to Holden. When he didn’t pick up, she called again. He finally answered, sleep addled and shirtless. “Bobbie? Do…do you know what time it is?” His brow furrowed as his brain registered the armor she had on.

“Time for you to get your ass back to the ship. Get prepped for immediate launch. If you’re not there and ready to go by the time Avasarala and I are, you’ll be hitching a ride to Luna.”

“What? What the fuck is going on?”

“I’m not fucking around Holden. Shore leave is over. Get back; get ready. Draper out.” She dropped the connection.

The autodoc finished it’s scan and Bobbie turned to inspect the readout. “I told you—” Chrisjen began.

“Cracked zygomatic, symptoms of hypoxia, bruising, swelling, need I go on?” Bobbie typed something in and Chrisjen hissed as the injectors went off.

She gritted her teeth. “Any brain damage?”

“It’s always a possibility with oxygen dep, but this is too basic to tell me anything specific.” Chrisjen bit her lip, and Bobbie noticed. “Why?”

She looked around the alcove for a sign that Cotyar had really been there. “I thought I might be hallucinating.”

Bobbie leaned forward at this admission, looking intently into Chrisjen’s face. “What did you see?”

Chrisjen swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “When my son died, I thought I would never stop waiting for him to come home. Some days I still look up expecting him to walk in the door. I thought maybe…”

Bobbie leaned back and slid the medcuff off her arm, but it barely registered. The marine carefully took Chrisjen’s hand in hers and made eye contact. Chrisjen blinked as Bobbie pulled her from the memories that had swept her back in time. “Cotyar’s really alive.”

Chrisjen’s smile was little more than a flicker, but she nodded in relief before leaning back against the wall.The cool metal against her bare shoulder made her shiver though she made no move to correct her state of undress. Bobbie returned the autodoc to her bag and sat back next to her.

They sat quietly for a few moments and Avasarala rubbed absentmindedly at the injection site on her arm. “You saved my life again. You’re accumulating quite the collection of IOUs. At this rate—”

“That’s not why I did those things.”

“No?” Chrisjen eyed her companion carefully. “Why do humans do anything?”

Bobbie looked disgusted. “I didn’t save you because I wanted a favor. I did it because it was the right thing to do! I’m not going to be holding this over your head for the rest of your life,” she said heatedly.

“Because you hate people who operate like that.”

“Yeah, I…I mean…no.” Bobbie stammered as she realized the corner Chrisjen had maneuvered her into. “I don’t hate you.”

Chrisjen gave her a gentle smile. “Humans fight, Bobbie. We fight over resources. We fight because ‘we’ think ‘they’ are different and vice versa. And you’re very good at fighting; I’ve read your service record, and seen you in action. I think you must have loved being a marine very much.”

“I…yes.” Bobbie swallowed hard.

“And I think you would like to be one again." She held up a hand to forestall any protest. "There’s always an ‘us’ and always a ‘them’,” Chrisjen continued, “that is the very basis of human nature. We create tribes for ourselves. Big, little, it doesn't matter. We define ourselves as Earthers, Martians, Belters, squad mates, colleagues, even lovers.” She shrugged. “We can’t help it, a human who feels no sense of belonging is lost.”

The marine’s face was as still as granite. Chrisjen couldn’t even see her breathing.

“I want you to know that I’m grateful to you. That you included me on your side, made me yours. Mars doesn’t know how lucky they are to have you.”

Bobbie’s stoic facade crumbled and she let her head fall onto Chrisjen’s shoulder with a choking sound. Chrisjen reached up to tuck an errant lock of hair behind the marine’s ear and Bobbie snagged her hand. The marine brought it to her cheek, her eyes closed tight, and held it there for two long breaths. Then she released it and slipped her hand to the base of Chrisjen’s skull pulling her forward to kiss her.

Chrisjen let her bring them together, the flutter in her diaphragm making her breath catch as Bobbie’s lips met hers. Soft and yielding, the marine melted unexpectedly against her. Chrisjen was even more surprised to find that her cheeks were damp and she broke the kiss to wipe the tears from Bobbie’s face.

Movement caught her eye and she looked up to see Cotyar watching them. She smiled knowingly at him. “What did you find?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started this story I figured it was going to be about four chapters long. That was obviously incorrect. And every time I finish a chapter I think it will take about two more to wrap everything up. So yeah...I have no idea. No less than 2 more chapters I guess. Thank you to everyone who is sticking around for it!


	10. Chapter 10

Cotyar allowed himself to feel, if not happy, at least satisfied with the situation as he made his way back to Avasarala and Bobbie. Their pursuers had broken off and the search was not currently threatening their foxhole. Honestly, it was the best he could have hoped for. How the rest of this debacle would go depended on how fast they could move. Once they left the blind spot, Dawes’ men would eventually find them. He and Bobbie were going to get Avasarala out. They had to get her out. He wasn’t going to come this far only to fail now.

He moved nearly silently, years of training having become habit, and the two women sitting against the wall did not notice his approach. He could hear Avasarala’s soft, low tones, but he only caught a word or two before Bobbie collapsed against her. He came to a halt unthinkingly when Bobbie pulled Avasarala into a kiss, at once feeling both a rush of concern for the younger woman and a bit of a voyeur. He knew the marine was in deep, but he hadn’t realized how far gone she was. What the hell was Avasarala's angle? He frowned. Playing on Bobbie's attraction seemed low, even for her.

His brain caught up to the fact his body had frozen and he shook himself free, continuing a few more steps forward before nearly dropping the large bundle under his arm in surprise. Bobbie’s armor was undone and Avasarala was half out of her jump suit. He could swear he hadn’t been gone that long. He muscled down the sudden rush of hormones that funneled the blood from his brain. He wasn’t blind. He had noticed that Bobbie was beautiful, and Avasarala was as stunning in a bloodied jumpsuit as she was draped in yards of silk and jewels. That didn’t matter right now. What mattered was making sure he kept the politician in check.

It wasn’t that he thought Avasarala was planning to go out of her way to hurt Bobbie. That was ridiculous, but she was who she was. The one time he had seen her give up leverage over someone, Errinwright had thrown it in back in her face and betrayed her. He had hurt her. Cotyar doubted she would allow herself to be so vulnerable again. If she held sway over the Martian surely she'd use it to her benefit, and Avasarala obviously had an advantage.

Predictably, she noticed him first. “What did you find?”

Bobbie started, a blush painting her cheeks as she rose to her feet.

“A change of clothes,” he said as he allowed the bundle of cloth to fall to the floor. “Anticipating your needs as usual, it seems.” He said pointedly, his voice sounding too tight even to his own ears. The way Avasarala looked at him was not helping matters. “Fortunately, I don’t think they’ll be looking here soon.” He forced a smirk onto his face. “It’s too bad, they’re missing out.”

The infuriating woman had the audacity to raise her eyebrows as she stood. He tried hard not to stand dumbfounded by the sight of her. “I find it hard to believe it’s anything you haven’t seen before.”

Cotyar caught sight of Bobbie out of the corner of his eye, an inscrutable look on her face. “It’s a nice idea, but I don't think any of us will pass as Belters,” she said as she picked up one of the jumpsuits at her feet.

He turned with relief to the much more clothed marine. It was an improvement until she straightened and he caught sight of Chrisjen’s smeared lipstick near the corner of her mouth. The idea he had any control over this situation evaporated. Goddamnit. The marine wasn’t the only one in trouble. He took a deep breath. “That depends on where we want to go. It may be enough to be overlooked on the security monitors, even if it's only temporarily.”

Cotyar glanced at Avasarala. “What’s Mao’s next move?”

“At the moment he has what he wants.”

“He wants you dead.” Bobbie said with a frown. Cotyar wanted to reach out and wipe the lipstick away. He found a spot on the wall to stare at instead as he shook off the thought of her soft lips under his touch.

Avasarala nodded in grim agreement, “Yes, but he’ll take what he can get. If I’m out of the way, I can’t prosecute him any more than I can if I’m dead.”

“He kidnapped Mei and all those other kids! He won’t get a pass just because you’re not there,” the marine said, incensed by the idea.

“No, but my absence exponentially increases the chance he’ll be able to buy his way out.” Chrisjen began pulling the zipper of the racing suit down further, to make it easier to slip her arm back inside Cotyar hoped.

He blew out a breath. “So, is Mao content to sit tight and let Holden take him to Luna or will he have Dawes get him off the ship? If it’s the latter, I don’t like our chances. They’ll have the _Rocinante_ locked down, and any OPA we end up having to fight our way through will be a lot more organized than the last bunch.”

Chrisjen paused as she considered his question, her hand still on her zipper. Cotyar’s eyes flicked down before he could stop himself, taking in the smooth plane of skin above her navel before he drug his gaze back up to her face. “Mao has no desire to be beholden to anyone, let alone a man like Dawes. This was a mutually beneficial exchange of information. If their play works, Mao will be free to continue fucking around with the protomolecule and Dawes will be first in line to use whatever new hell that amoral asshole comes up with.”

“Maybe,” Cotyar hedged. “But why would Dawes get in bed with Mao? Especially after Eros. If it were to get out, I can’t see it going over well with his fellow Belters.”

“It won’t, which is another reason Mao will stay where he is for now. He’d be a fucking moron to risk being put on trial by the mob.”

“That still doesn’t explain Dawes.”

“Why do you assume I know what the fuck is going on in everyone’s head?”

Bobbie laughed. “Because you do.”

Avasarala rolled her eyes and mercifully eased her arm back inside her sleeve. “I’ve never met the man, it would be a guess at best.”

“False modesty doesn't become you. Though, I don’t think modesty of any type is your forte.” Cotyar said and Chrisjen’s mask slipped as she realized he had been staring. For a moment he could see the surprise in her eyes, and it made all the shit she was going to give him over this worth it. It only lasted a moment before she locked eyes with him and painstakingly pulled the zipper back up hiding silk and skin once more.

She took another moment to collect herself before continuing. “The OPA is not a cohesive organization. Dawes wants to run the Belt, but there are other groups he has to compete with. Fred Johnson…” she trailed off and then a wide smile split her face. “I need to send another message to Fred Johnson.”

“Now?”

She looked at him like it was the stupidest question in the world. “Yes. As soon as possible.”

“You have the patience of a two year old,” Cotyar huffed and Bobbie snickered.

“I have other virtues.”

“I’m sure,” he replied sardonically. “This would have been easier before we left the communication center, you know.”

She pursed her lips. “It still needs to be encrypted and untraceable. Being the Secretary-General doesn’t make it any less treasonous, and I’m not ready to hang just yet.”

“I’m sorry,” Bobbie cut in. “I don’t understand. Why do you need to talk to Fred Johnson?”

“Because I can work with Fred Johnson.”

Cotyar couldn’t believe his ears. “ _You_ are going to legitimize the OPA?” Could she really have forgiven them for Charanpal’s death? And if she could forgive them, could she forgive him? It was a heady thought. Could he forgive himself?

“I’m going to legitimize Fred Johnson,” she equivocated. “It would be the height of hubris to pretend that he hasn’t carved a place in the political landscape for the Belt. Besides,” she said as a wry smile spread on her face, “choosing to work with Colonel Johnson has the added benefit that it’s really going to piss Anderson Dawes the fuck off.”

“You want to commit treason just to piss off the guy who kidnapped you? That’s impressively spiteful.” Bobbie said dryly.

Avasarala shook her head with a small smile and she raised her hand to Bobbie’s face. The question in the marine’s eyes vanished as Avasarala ran her thumb along her upper lip, clearing the dark pigment away. “That’s just the upside. It's important to know what your competition is doing. We may be able to give Johnson a leg up in that regard, and while we may be able to stop Mao from continuing to communicate with the OPA, Johnson’s people can get information I can’t. They can find out exactly who that motherfucker is talking to.”

“And you’ll owe Johnson a favor. He’ll love that.”

“You’re willingly going into the debt of a man your government has labeled a traitor and terrorist?” It was Bobbie’s turn to express disbelief.

Avasarala nodded. “That’s how it’s done. A favor here, some information sharing there. Give and take is how good political relationships work. In any case, the fact that I’m asking for a favor isn’t a valueless act in itself.”

Cotyar whistled as her implication became clear. “You’re giving him a backchannel to the head of the UN. I take it back; he’s the one who’s going to owe you.”

Bobbie’s forehead wrinkled. “I hate politics,” she groaned as she started trying to fit the Ceres dock uniform over her armor.

Cotyar handed Avasarala the smallest of the three he had found. He did not miss the resignation on her face which he suspected had nothing to do with her fashion options.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay in posting. The next chapter may be late as well. Thank you for your patience!

Bobbie was pretty sure whatever Amos and Holden had expected to come through the airlock door was not what they saw. The three of them were a mess in their ill-fitting Dock uniforms. Bobbie had torn the legs and sleeves of hers open because she flatly refused to leave her even partially functional armor behind. Avasarala was wearing a jump suit that wasn’t overly baggie on her, but still had to have the legs and sleeves rolled ten times to keep her from tripping. Though it felt perfectly normal to Bobbie, Chrisjen was obviously uncomfortable in the low-g. She had been stoically silent on the subject of her discomfort, but that probably had more to do with the man next to her than anything else.

Of the trio, Cotyar looked the worst. Sweaty, pale, and smeared with blood, he had reopened his gut wound yet again. He and Bobbie had gotten the drop on a handful of Dawes’ crew halfway back to the docks. While they had avoided any new gunshot injuries, Cotyar had managed to tear a couple of his stitches out anyway. He probably could have made it on his own, but he didn’t voice a single protest when Chrisjen had taken his arm across her shoulders to offer her support. Thankfully, access to the medbay aboard the _Rocinante_ meant it wasn’t a dire situation yet, just a messy one.

“Damn, Chrissie,” Amos began as they stumbled through the door. “You look like you had a lot more fun than we did tonight.”

The look of surprise on her face was priceless. “Don’t call me that,” Avasarala managed after a moment of stunned silence, “or I’ll have Bobbie beat you with your own goddamn wrench.”

Amos grinned. “We expecting uninvited guests?”

“Probably,” Bobbie answered. “Anything I should know about here?”

“That guy you brought on board? Theo?”

“Yeah?”

“He’s really annoying.”

“Yeah.”

“Would someone tell me what the fuck is going on?” Holden interjected. The man had looking righteously petulant down to an art.

Chrisjen didn’t seem to care. “Can we please get the man who is bleeding all over me to the medbay?”

Amos stepped aside, and Chrisjen walked Cotyar to the lift. Bobbie nodded to her, “I’ll be there in a minute,” and then turned back to the two men.

“How’s Alex?”

“Awake and coherent, but not what I’d call a hundred percent,” Holden frowned.

“Can he fly?”

“He’s not flying anywhere until someone tells me what the fuck happened.”

“The OPA is trying to abduct Madam Avasarala,” Bobbie said succinctly.

“How is that even possible?”

“That’s something they’re going to be working out.” She gestured in the direction Avasarala and Cotyar had gone. “You want answers, she’s the one who’s going to have them.”

Holden sighed deeply, “Like she’s going to tell me anything.”

“You could always try ‘please’,” Bobbie said as she turned to head down the ladder.

“Seriously? That works?” Holden asked as he followed behind her.

Bobbie’s mouth turned up in a half smile he couldn’t see. “No.”

Bobbie came into the medbay to find Cotyar settled on the couch next to Alex. Avasarala was waving a terminal in his face already looking extremely pissed off.

“I don’t have time to argue this with you. Until I’ve talked to Fred Johnson we can’t leave.”

“How am I supposed to keep you safe if—”

“You want to leave Ceres? Then get me a channel to Johnson so I can find out who the fuck Mao is in communication with.”

“Mao? Our prisoner? The man we stripped of all possessions when we brought him on board? That Mao?”

Chrisjen spared Holden a glance before turning back to Cotyar. “If there is someone willing to help that motherfucker, I want to know who.”

“As soon as Mao finds out you escaped there’s every reason to assume they’ll be back to try again. And the next group may realize you’re more trouble than you’re worth and just kill you. My job is to keep you alive.”

She held out the terminal to him again, her face set. “Your job is to do what I tell you.”

“The best I can do on short notice is a repeat of the last one. Which naturally makes it half as secure and twice as likely to come back and bite you in the ass,” he said, taking the device.

“We’re already out here. Why not go to Tycho and talk to Johnson in person? Then everyone’s happy. You don’t have to deal with lag, Cotyar gets you away from Dawes, and Holden can even sleep with his girlfriend for a couple more nights,” Bobbie suggested.

Chrisjen sighed. “We can’t leave Ceres yet. Mao needs to keep communicating with his source. If we change the status quo we’ll lose this opportunity.”

“You realize,” Cotyar said, his head down as he worked, “that if Dawes does decide to come after you, he probably has enough pull to have this berth locked down. We should leave while we can.”

“Wait,” Holden began and Chrisjen shot Cotyar a wide eyed look. “This is my ship—”

“And I’ve hired you. We’re staying,” she interrupted.

“We can’t let ‘em lock down the _Roci_ ,” Alex jumped in.

“Alex is right. Contract or no, we’re not staying if we’re about to be trapped here by the wrong arm of the OPA.”

Cotyar looked smug as he handed the terminal back to Avasarala. “Your backchannel.”

She took it, her expression closed. “You’re fired,” she said flatly. Cotyar tilted his head, a look of mild surprise on his face. Bobbie wasn’t sure if she was serious or not. There was no vitriol in it and coming from Avasarala that was more worrisome than comforting.

Chrisjen turned on Holden, her voice biting once again. “And you, don’t be an idiot. The governor of Ceres loves his job too much to refuse an order from me. He’ll make sure your ship is left alone.”

“I’m pretty sure we all just got done saving your ass from UN officials that thought killing you was a good idea. You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust _any_ of them as far as I can throw them at one-g.”

She scowled. “Do you want the people that worked with Mao on his proto-molecule project to walk away from this scott free?”

“I—of course not! What does that—” Holden stuttered.

“Do you want them to torture more children? Because if we leave now, we’ll loose a lead on one of those fuckers. One who is tied directly to the OPA.” Chrisjen took a deep breath and scrunched her face in discomfort. The pain-killer cocktail was probably starting to wear off. “I’m going to contact Fred Johnson. I’d appreciate it if the rest of you could avoid fucking this up any more than it already is until I’m done.” She turned and left.

“Is that really what’s goin’ on?” Alex asked.

“Probably,” Cotyar sighed.

Holden looked pensive and stepped over to check the readout on the pilot’s med-cuff. “Alex, can you get the pre-flight done? We may need to peel paint getting out of here.”

“You got it, Hos.”

Holden helped him out of the chair and turned back towards Cotyar as they headed for Ops deck. “If I get the slightest whiff of trouble we’re cutting loose, whether she likes it or not.”

“Good.” Cotyar said to their retreating forms. He sat up and disengaged the med-cuff.

“What are you doing?” Bobbie asked in surprise.

“I’m going to poke the bear.”

“She just fired you. There’s no way she’s going to listen to a thing you have to say right now.”

“Not Avasarala. Mao.”

“Should I be getting ready for a fight, then?”

“The OPA won’t be a problem if we haul ass out of here.”

“I meant between you and her.”

Cotyar frowned at her. “She wants to cut these assholes off at the knees, which is all well and good, but I’m not convinced that Mao’s contact will pan out the way she hopes. It’s a huge risk for an uncertain reward.” He shook his head in frustration. “After everything Errinwright did you’d think she’d accept the fact that there are people who are more than willing to kill her.”

“Huh.” The beginning of understanding flickered at the edge of Bobbie’s consciousness.

Cotyar looked at her expectantly. “Now’s not really the time to keep things to yourself, Marine.”

“It’s just…for all she says she hates space, she hasn’t exactly been chomping at the bit to get back to Luna. I would have thought with Sorrento-Gillies resigning she’d want to get home even faster. Instead she’s been dragging her heels. I don't think she wants to be Secretary-General. I just don’t understand why. She could step down.”

Cotyar blew out a breath.“As soon as she does, Errinwright will have won. She won't like it, but at least on Earth she’ll be a hell of a lot safer.”

The fucking game. Bobbie shook her head, “What are you going to tell Mao?”

“What she would have told me to if she was thinking straight.” He fell silent as he considered her carefully. Finally, he spoke, “You’re better than she deserves.”

Bobbie blinked at the non sequitur before her brows knit together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t want you to get your hopes up. And I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Bobbie wanted to be angry, but the earnestness in Cotyar’s expression dampened any ire she could muster. “Do you love her?”

He sighed. “It's surprisingly hard not to, but…look, Avasarala is not in the habit of giving up an advantage. She’ll use whatever you give her against you. It’s just who she is.”

Bobbie felt a smile creeping on to her face. “She said the same thing in her own way. It’s funny how both of you are warning me off.”

“Why in the world is that funny?”

“It proves you’re wrong. She deserves me, and so do you,” she said with an air of finality.

He stared, stunned to silence, looking at her like he was trying to decipher some hidden code.

“I need to talk with the others about what sort of defense we can mount. If you’re going to talk to Mao, you’d better get moving before you bleed out. I’ll give you fifteen minutes; if you’re not back in that chair by then I will haul you back here myself.”

 

 

 

By the time Bobbie finished, Cotyar was back in the medbay. She considered asking what he had gained by harassing the wildlife, but decided he would tell her if and when she needed to know. She stepped up to the readout and checked that he was set for a while. “You can kip on the top bunk when you’re ready. I don’t mind splitting shifts, but I’m going to grab a little shut eye. So’s Holden.” The beds were full and the _Rocinante_ was almost starting to feel like it had a full complement. “Alex has the PDCs ready to come up and Amos has the airlock covered for now. Any news from our new OPA friend?”

“Not that I’ve heard. I would have gone to check on Madam Avasarala, but I didn’t want you to have to make good on your threats.”

“You’re smart, because I will tie you to that couch if necessary.”

He smiled wryly. “Not usually my kind of kink, but I’d be willing if it turns you on.”

“My mistake, you’re a smart _ass_.” She said as she headed back down to crew quarters. She was glad he was smiling again. It helped lessen the nerves that always came with waiting for a fight.

She knocked lightly on the door but got no response. She opened the door and found Chrisjen asleep at the table, her head pillowed on her arms, the closed hand terminal laying next to her. “Chrisjen?” The steady rise and fall of the older woman’s back reassured her that she was breathing. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Bobbie bent down to unfasten and slide off her mag boots, stowing them in the bunk locker before returning to lift Chrisjen into her arms. The older woman stirred but didn’t wake when she carried her to the bunk. Bobbie pulled off her own boots and stowed them as well, stripped out of her armor and climbed onto the bunk next to her. It was a tight fit, but even so Bobbie felt perfectly comfortable wrapping herself around Chrisjen protectively, turning her body into a shield against anything thrown their way.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a little angsty to start with. Sorry about that.

An alert going off on her terminal woke Chrisjen with a start. For a moment she couldn’t figure out where she was. Her mouth felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, and there was a persistent ache right behind her eyeballs. She couldn’t see, and could not comprehend why. Something heavy was pressed against her.

God, it was dark and she was trapped again in that fucking bag. Her heart jumped into her throat and her head swum. She couldn’t swallow, couldn’t get a breath. They were cutting off her air, and she was going to pass out and die in the cold and dark of unforgiving space. Fuck no! She had to get out.

She slammed her hands against a metal bulkhead and her head collided with something hard as she thrashed wildly. Neither surface gave way. Someone was shouting. Her throat felt raw.

“Chrisjen!”

The band tightened around her chest as she gulped for air.

“Holy shit. Chrisjen!”

Bobbie. That was Bobbie’s voice right in her ear. It was Bobbie’s weight against her back, Bobbie’s arm holding her in place.

“Oh fuck,” she managed roughly as she tried to still her trembling limbs. Jesus Christ, she had just had a full blown panic attack. “Next time leave the goddamn lights on.” She took in a tremulous breath through her nose. “Please.” She was going to cry. Fuck it all, wasn’t this embarrassing enough already? Did she have to add weeping in front of Bobbie to the list?

“Chrisjen, are you okay?” Bobbie’s grip on her loosened. “I’m going to let you go now.” The marine rolled out of the bunk and the dim running lights on the floor became visible as she moved out of the way. For some reason Chrisjen found it even more upsetting to realize there had been lights on the whole time. What the fuck was wrong with her?

She stood on shaking legs trying desperately to slow her breathing. “No. I’m not okay. You’ve apparently decided to side with Mars and kill me. What the hell was wrong with your bunk?” She pressed a hand to the bridge of her nose, she was going to end up with a full on migraine at this rate. “Did you have a nightmare? For fuck’s sake are you five?” She glanced up and caught Bobbie rubbing at her sternum. She took another unsteady breath, trying to rein in the unreasonable anger. “Goddamnit. Hand me that terminal.”

Bobbie complied with an odd look on her face.

She shut off the alert and opened her messages. “Did I hurt you?” she asked without looking up, the irritation in her voice now directed inward.

She found Fred Johnson’s reply and pulled it up before she realized Bobbie had not responded. Her eyes snapped to the silent marine. “Did I?” Worry replaced anger in a split second. Even if the idea of her causing the powerful woman any real physical damage was almost laughable, she suddenly realized she might have wounded her another way.

Chrisjen dropped the terminal to her side, focusing her attention fully on the young woman. “Bobbie, I’m…” The Martian was standing at attention, eyes fixed on a point somewhere on the wall behind Chrisjen. Fuck. She reached out and ran a hand along Bobbie’s upper arm, tugging slightly to try and pull her out of her stoic stance.

“You should see what Johnson has to say,” Bobbie said, her voice as emotionless as her face.

“It can wait.” Chrisjen frowned at her. “I’m not okay, but that’s no excuse for my behaving like that.”

Chrisjen finally worked Bobbie’s hand loose and held it firmly, eyes fixed on the marine’s face. Bobbie still wouldn’t look at her. “I feel like I have the worst hangover in existence. I fucking hurt all over and I just had a panic attack, which is only slightly less mortifying than the fact that I can’t seem to stop being terrified and angry.” She squeezed Bobbie’s hand harder. “I don’t think I’ve had mood swings this bad since menopause. Please don’t…” she cast about for the right way to put it. “Don’t go away like that.”

Bobbie slowly met Chrisjen’s gaze. “You aren’t very good at apologies.”

“Well, I rarely have to give them,” she said dryly.

The marine snorted and Chrisjen took it as a good sign. Bobbie’s eyes dropped to their hands. “The headache and the mood swings are probably my fault. The amphetamines…they keep you focused and moving in the moment, but it never feels good when they wear off. We should get you back to medbay to make sure it’s nothing else though.”

“Wonderful,” Chrisjen huffed. She was really tired of being under constant surveillance, and she was really tired of being stabbed, no matter how small the needles. “Let’s see what Colonel Johnson has for us.” She pulled the hand terminal back up and let the recording play. Bobbie kept the contact between them but stepped behind her to watch over her shoulder. Chrisjen leaned into her lightly, letting Bobbie steady her further.

“Madam Avasarala. I understand congratulations are in order…”

“Asshole,” Chrisjen muttered.

“…and I appreciate your candor with me. The least I can do is return the favor. The man you’re looking for is a former Protogen scientist by the name of Paolo Cortázar. Unfortunately, his location is not something I’m privy to. I know that he is working with Anderson Dawes, but he would work for anyone who would let him continue his study of the proto-molecule. He has no morals to speak of, though that seems to be the case with most of Protogen’s employees. It’s my understanding that these people willingly underwent a procedure encouraged by the company that effectively turned them into sociopaths, the better to keep empathy from interfering in their work.”

“Jesus,” Bobbie whispered.

“I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. At the moment, he’s beyond my reach. If you are able to find out how they are communicating we’d be happy to keep an eye on them for you.”

“I’m sure you would.” The recording ended and Chrisjen realized her nails were cutting painfully into her palm. “Fuck…fuck! Fuck!!” She broke away from Bobbie and hurled the terminal across the room. It hit the wall and fell to the floor with a satisfyingly loud clatter just as it ought to have.

Chrisjen stared at it. She hurt all over. Not just her head, her joints ached too. It was a feeling she was coming to associate with her body adjusting to changes in gravity. “Bobbie…why the fuck do I feel like I weigh something?”

Bobbie blinked and put her hand on the bulkhead. Chrisjen was sure she was feeling the vibration of the engine. “We’re burning…probably close to one-g.”

 

 

 

_Two And A Half Hours Earlier_

Cotyar’s interaction with Jules Pierre Mao had gone about as he had expected. Which was to say, open-ended and completely treasonous, but it was a good start towards getting what he needed.

He hadn’t bothered announcing himself. He simply walked in and let the door slide shut behind him as he stared rudely at the once powerful system-wide mogul. Mao stared back, clearly trying to place Cotyar’s face.

“What do you want?” he finally asked.

Cotyar gave him his best shit-eating grin. “I just wanted to get a look at you. The whole you that is, before Avasarala dismembers you.”

Mao sneered in disgust. “Now I remember you. One of her lackeys.”

Cotyar nodded. “It must sting, knowing that despite being a poor servant of the people, she’s still able to find better help than you. What good is all that money and power if you can’t even manage to assassinate one little government official?”

“Did you come here just to mock me, or did you have something useful to say?” Mao growled.

“I’m a fan of multitasking,” Cotyar said, still smiling. He waited a beat and let the smile fall away. “You’ve made a pretty serious miscalculation if you think Dawes will move openly to attack this ship. You handed them the perfect opportunity and they blew it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s okay; I like to listen to the sound of my voice. Just keep in mind that you’re on board _James_ _Holden’s_ ship. Remember him? A sometimes OPA operative, the Hero of the Belt? Dawes isn’t stupid enough to risk the fallout over attacking a Belter hero for a genocidal piece of shit like you.” He paused for emphasis. “You’d have to have one hell of a carrot to make it worth his while.”

“I see.” Mao looked at him contemplatively and Cotyar resisted the urge to smile as he took the bait. “And what would it take to make it worth _your_ while?”

“Funny you should ask. I have recently had my career options open up, but I gotta be honest, you don’t look like you’re in much of a position to make me an offer.”

“Don’t let these circumstances fool you. I’m not as helpless as I appear to be.”

“If that’s really true, I’m all ears. But you’d better talk fast; it won’t be long before I’m missed.”

After their little chat he had dutifully returned to Medbay and let Bobbie check on him. Once she was satisfied he gave her a good thirty minutes more just to make sure Avasarala didn’t send her back. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Bobbie, he did. He just didn’t trust that Avasarala wouldn’t immediately see his plan all over Bobbie’s face. Reasonably sure she wasn’t returning, he detached himself from the med couch once again and headed up to the operations deck to convince their pilot it was time to leave.


	13. Chapter 13

“Is our shadow still there?”

“Like a tick on a hound dog,” Alex drawled.

“Alright. Has Mao contacted them again?” Cotyar asked.

“Not in the last hour. Looks like they’re just tailin’ us, waitin’ for instructions.”

“Waiting to see if I hold up my end of the bargain.”

Holden grunted. “I’m not too thrilled about being used for target practice out here. I thought the whole point of leaving Ceres was to get away from the OPA.”

“That’s not the OPA. That’s whatever Mao could scrounge together out here on short notice.”

“We’ve seen what those Protogen ships can do and I don’t like the idea of being shot at either way.”

“Think about it this way. That little stealth ship will hold up to…maybe seven. How many foot soldiers do you think Dawes had at his disposal to throw at us?”

“And you’re sure they’re not going to nuke us?”

Cotyar grinned at him. “Not as long as Mao is on board.” His good humor drained away rapidly as a stone-faced Bobbie appeared on the ladder.

“Madam Avasarala would like to see you,” she said sharply.

“Well, it was nice knowing you guys,” he grimaced.

“No,” Bobbie held up her hand. “She’d like to see all of you.”

Holden didn’t look impressed. “She’s welcome to join us, but we’ve got something of a situation here. Alex and I are staying where we are.”

“If there’s a situation, you should have informed us,” Bobbie said disapprovingly.

“I did come by, but it looked like you needed the sleep more,” Bobbie flushed warmly and he decided not to tease her further. When he had first entered the cabin he hadn’t even realized Chrisjen was there. Bobbie’s protectiveness of Avasarala seemed to extend to hiding her from view. “Don’t worry, we have it under control. I’ll explain everything to Madam Avasarala.” Cotyar stepped forward and Bobbie turned smartly on her heel, heading for the ladder.

He sighed as they descended. “I know she’s pissed, but surely you agree. Leaving Ceres was the best way to keep her safe,” he tried.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” the marine said coldly.

“Yes, it does. Sometimes you have to call her on her bullshit.”

She stopped. “Fine. I agree she’s safer, but that doesn’t mean I like the way you went about it. And she sure as hell doesn’t.”

“I guess it’s lucky I don’t have a job to lose anymore.”

“What is this then? Freelancing?” she asked as they paused outside her door.

Cotyar took a deep breath. “Everyone’s got bills to pay,” he managed with a weak smile.

Bobbie frowned, knocked once and stepped aside to let him enter first.

Avasarala’s eyes flicked briefly to him as he stepped forward, then back to her terminal. Cotyar shifted uncomfortably and finally clasped his hands together with a sigh, waiting for the excoriation to begin. Avasarala set the device down, lips pursed. She let a moment of silence drag on before looking back up at him. “When I said you were fired, I meant it. Did you want me to bring you up on charges of kidnapping as well?”

“I know you’re not happy about it. But this is a better way to deal with Mao.”

Avasarala’s nostrils flared as she inhaled sharply. “Define ‘better’,” she said with a dangerous edge.

“I know you were worried Mao would stop talking to his source—”

She waved a hand. “I know who Dawes is working with.”

“Johnson already had a name?”

“He did. Unfortunately, Colonel Johnson couldn’t provide much more than that. He claims to have no access to the man.”

“Then the good news is that Mao is still convinced he’s going to be leading humanity into a protomolecule tinted future. It wasn’t difficult to persuade him that I could be bought.” Cotyar smiled smugly. “Whoever is receiving Mao’s messages is following us right now. You wanted them? We’ve got them.” Rather than mollifying her, his words seemed to have the opposite effect; he saw fear flash across her face. Cotyar was left scrambling to reassure her. “On Ceres we were in a terrible position. There were too many ways for them to get to you. Out here, their options are limited. And so is the number of people they can throw at us when the time comes to make a stand.”

Avasarala grimaced. “I wasn’t looking to make a stand.”

Cotyar rubbed at the base of his neck, his frustration building. “This is the safer option.”

“Safer for me?”

“Oh for— quit being intentionally obtuse. I’m tired of having to continually remind you that there are people trying to kill you.”

“You’re a fucking idiot!” Avasarala said abruptly, rising to her feet. “I understand perfectly well that they want to kill me. I’m just not interested in trading your lives for mine.” She leaned over the table towards him, her hands spread wide. “You’re right though. Before we left, those fucking assholes had options. They had quite a few ways of dealing with me without putting everyone on this ship in danger. On Ceres, if everything went south, there was an entire city that you, Bobbie, and the rest of the miscreants could have taken Mei and run to. Now what happens? If this goes poorly you’re all going to fucking die.”

Silence fell in the wake of Avasarala’s tirade and she sat back down heavily, her expression pained. He glanced at Bobbie, wondering if his face mirrored her worried one. “Do you—”

“Be quiet,” Avasarala snapped, “and let me think.”

There was no point in arguing with her, no matter how infuriating it was to stay silent. Her casual invectives notwithstanding, Cotyar wasn’t an idiot. He understood full well that every move they made in this game came with its own set of risks, but he was surprised at how much her lack of trust in him to handle the situation stung. She had trusted him once.

“You’ve figured out how Mao is communicating with them,” Avasarala said quietly.

“He has a device that sends a piggybacked signal on the _Rocinante’s_ outgoing transmissions. It’s ingenious really; it’s not even a hardwired connection. We’d never have picked it up if we hadn’t been certain he was using it. Theo was actually a lot of help there.”

“Get the details to SIGINT and give…fuck, who’s in charge now…Velotte. Give Admiral Velotte everything you have on that ship.”

“I take it you haven’t canceled my security clearance just yet.”

“If you’re finished being an ass, you can consider yourself on probation. Can we get away from Mao’s people?”

Cotyar took a moment to consider it. “I suppose. I don’t see him risking his own life.”

“If so, it’s only because he doesn’t understand what I’m going to do to him yet.”

Bobbie raised an eyebrow. “How big is this ship exactly?” she cut in.

“No bigger than a Martian troller. Small and stealthy, but not big enough to hold much more than a handful of bodies.”

“And it’s stealth tech? How did you see them?”

“Mao had to prove to me he could deliver his part of the bargain before I…” he trailed off uncomfortably.

“Before you what?” Bobbie asked.

“Before he agreed to assassinate me,” Avasarala said cooly.

Bobbie’s jaw clenched briefly but she didn’t react further. Cotyar let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. At least Bobbie trusted him. There was no doubt in his mind that if she didn’t, he’d be pinned face down on the floor by a hundred kilos of Martian marine right now.

“Cut them loose.”

“You do realize that even with the data on that ship, there’s no guarantee that the UNN will be able to track them down. If we break away from them there may be no way to find them again.”

Avasarala looked back down at her hand terminal, effectively dismissing him. “I know.”

Cotyar began to pace rather than taking the hint and she glared up at him. “I get why you’re upset, but if you want these men we can hand them to you on a platter. You just have to trust me.”

A sigh rumbled in her chest and she rubbed her temple. “Are you not listening? This isn’t worth your life. It’s not worth hers,” she motioned to the statuesque marine. “It’s not worth Mei’s. It’s just not worth it.”

Cotyar shook his head. “But it was worth yours? Because that might have been the price of staying on Ceres.”

She pinned him with a glare. “Bobbie, would you give us a moment?”

The marine didn’t look as if she wanted to do that at all, but she nodded anyway. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

“Thank you.” Avasarala waited quietly for the marine to leave before continuing. “When we get to Luna, Yú Xiù Lián will be taking over as head of my security detail.”

So he was still fired. “Ms. Yú is a capable choice. Is my probationary period over already?” He tried not to let irritation creep into his voice. He had never known her to be capricious, even in anger. He wondered when, exactly, she had settled on this course of action. He suspected it was the moment she thought he was about to betray her aboard the _Guanshiyin_.

“Assuming you keep us all from being killed, you’ll have a letter of recommendation from my office. You can return to the Luna run, or join whatever lost cause you deem most attractive.”

“Are you at least keeping Bobbie on?” She had been working to snare the marine, but confirmation of that fact would at least be some consolation. Someone needed to be looking out for her.

“That’s Bobbie’s business,” she replied shortly, not meeting his gaze.

His face fell as a horrible certainty filled him. “You’re going to send her back to Mars.”

He saw her jaw clench. “We’re done here.”

“No, we’re not,” he said quickly. “Are you ever going to forgive me for what happened on Mao’s ship?”

Avasarala looked at him uncomprehendingly. “What am I supposed to forgive? You’ve done everything I’ve asked and more.”

He wanted to shake her. “I wasn’t going to betray you.”

“I know,” she replied with a huff.

“Then why—”

She held up a hand, forestalling further argument. “No more. I don’t want to hear anymore about what you think you owe my son.” She rose to her feet again and moved to leave. “This arrangement is over, Cotyar.” She paused before opening the door. “You don’t owe Charanpal, because you can’t owe the dead. A debt that can only be repaid with your life isn’t a debt. It’s a curse.”

“But—”

Avasarala interrupted him again as she pushed the release and stepped by him. “I believe you have work to do.”

He stood speechless in the open door, watching her go. Bobbie looked at him curiously. “You okay there?”

“She…I…she won’t let me get a damn word in edgewise,” he spluttered.

Bobbie’s eyebrow went up. “How is that different than any other day?”

“I need her to listen to reason. She won’t even hear me out.” Cotyar fumed.

“You might let her cool down some. You know, maybe quit trying to actively piss her off for a while.”

He snorted. “I don’t have that kind of time. She’s not keeping me on. I’m done as soon as we hit Luna. And she’s sending you back to Mars.”

Bobbie chewed on her bottom lip. “Why?”

Cotyar frowned. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. Never, in all the time he had known her, had he seen her let personal feelings get in the way of what she saw as necessary for the greater good. He found it damn hard to believe he and Bobbie were no longer useful to her. “I don’t know.”

“You want to get a word in?”

“For all the good it will do, yes.”

“Come on then.”

“How are you going to convince her to listen?”

Bobbie shrugged as she turned towards the ladder. “Cheat.”

Avasarala looked up as they came into the galley. She set the carafe she had been pouring tea from onto the counter, “What’s wrong?”

Cotyar settled himself on a stool, back to the long table, waiting to see exactly what Bobbie had in mind. The marine gave him a glance and then propelled herself forward. She pulled Chrisjen to her and into a searing kiss. The bulb in Chrisjen’s hand went crashing to the floor and Cotyar’s jaw joined it. His thought process made it as far as acknowledging that this probably would keep Avasarala quiet before Bobbie deposited the gasping Acting Secretary General in his lap.

Bobbie reapplied herself to Chrisjen’s mouth and his mind blanked as Avasarala wriggled against him. His breath came out heavily, the tightness in his stomach shooting straight to his groin. Chrisjen’s hands came down on his thighs, nails digging in, and he reached out reflexively, his own hands coming to rest on Bobbie’s hips. He pulled her forward unthinkingly, trapping Avasarala more tightly against him and pressing his own thigh between Bobbie’s. Chrisjen moaned into Bobbie’s mouth and Cotyar squeezed his eyes shut.

He was supposed to be doing something. But there didn’t seem to be enough blood going to his brain anymore to care what. Chrisjen squirmed against him and he groaned; there was no hiding the hardness straining against her very arousing movements. He took in a steadying breath and started counting by threes. He got to forty-two before that train of thought lost out to the writhing against his cock and he opened his eyes. Bobbie also seemed to have forgotten what they were there for. With no regard for the fact they were in a public space, she was in the process of peeling Chrisjen out of her jumpsuit. Chrisjen was trying her best to get Bobbie out of hers, but she was hampered by the fact that the marine had her arms half pinned down as she worked to push the collar of the racing suit past Chrisjen’s shoulders.

His eyes followed the smooth slope of those shoulders past her collarbone, which he felt a sudden urge to bite, to stare at her heaving chest. He dropped his lips to her neck and mouthed her gently, his breath hot against her. Chrisjen managed to break Bobbie’s kiss and she let her head fall back against him, panting. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Fucking, looks like.” All three of them might as well have been doused in cold water as Amos walked through the galley. The large mechanic gave them an appraising look, “Or heavy petting, anyway.” He picked Avasarala’s discarded bulb up off the floor and proceeded to make himself a cup of coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry for the delay in posting. Due to family illness I am unlikely to be able to post with much regularity in the near future. I'm not abandoning this fic by any means, but I doubt I'll be able to manage a weekly update.
> 
> Thank you to priestlys for her kindness and last minute editorial assist.


	14. Chapter 14

Chrisjen didn’t bite her nails. She didn’t play with her hair, and she didn’t pace. She had spent years training herself not to give away her anxiety, and at this moment all of that training was being put to the test. She eyed Dr. Meng warily as he slowly checked the pistol in his hands. “Do you actually know how to use that thing?”

“Amos gave me a few lessons.” His eyes slid from the gun to his daughter who was behind Avasarala whispering secretively to her bear. “So I’d be able to go get Mei.”

Chrisjen shook her head. “You’re better off putting that away and staying here with her.”

The botanist’s face crumpled slightly. “She’ll be fine with you. You’re the ones who need to be kept safe.” His mouth tightened. “I know I don’t have a lot to offer here, but I need to contribute something.”

“Why does everyone think the best way to contribute is with a gun? For f—” Avasarala caught herself before continuing in a softer voice. “If something happens to you, do you really think she’ll be fine?” She frowned as he looked at the gun again. “You’re as bad as Cotyar,” she grumbled. Her erstwhile spy. How the hell had he talked her into this mess? She couldn’t shake the feeling this was all going to go horribly wrong. Couldn’t stop wanting to scream that they should be burning hard for a real gravity well. Instead, she had said yes to a half-baked plan and a prayer.

Cotyar and Bobbie had trapped her between an immovable force and an irresistible object, quite literally. And as her better judgement seemed to be on holiday, she had capitulated. Fuck. A tingling sensation in her fingers alerted her to the fact that she had been squeezing her hands too tightly. She flexed them slowly and took two deep breaths. Goddamnit, she was in this mess because she had broken the number one rule of politics. Don’t fuck your subordinates. Arguing that there hadn’t been any actual fucking yet was sophistic to the point of farce. Was it any wonder that toeing the line had made things worse? Her decision making was seriously impaired. Oh yes, she was fucked, and what she really needed was to get laid.

There was nothing to be gained by lying to herself. Bobbie’s naked admiration was flattering. Chrisjen was usually good at keeping her ego from getting in the way of her work, but even she occasionally allowed the two to mix. Michael Iturbi had been a pleasant such indulgence, but while he had been of inestimable value in her political machinations, he wasn’t actually one of her underlings. Cotyar most certainly was. Bobbie probably didn’t consider Chrisjen a superior in the same way, but she had definitely been deferring to Chrisjen’s lead.

A knock at the door pulled her from her thoughts. Dr. Meng opened it to admit Amos Burton who gave a short nod, by way of greeting, to each of them. “Doc. Chrissie.”

Chrisjen grit her teeth, allowing her annoyance at the nickname to distract her from her frayed nerves. “What the f—” The self-described ‘mechanic’ was carrying an enormous looking shotgun. Avasarala glanced away from it almost as soon as her eyes had settled there. “What is it now?” she finished.

Burton seemed unperturbed by her caustic manner. “Your man and Holden say we’re about to see some action. Shouldn’t be shooting ship to ship, but just in case, you need to know where the emergency equipment is.”

Avasarala resisted the urge to argue that if Mao’s ship fired on them it would mean Cotyar’s plan had gone to shit and no amount of emergency training was likely to help her. Mei was playing on the lower bunk behind them, and nothing productive would come from frightening her too. Chrisjen stepped back and let Burton show her where she could find masks and oxygen, and how she might adjust the adult sized masks to fit Mei.

Dr. Meng had produced a small box for his daughter and had helped her upend its contents on the mattress. He straightened and gave her a small smile as he made his way out of the room. Amos gave Chrisjen a final raised eyebrow as he made to follow Prax. “Offer still stands if you wanna fuck when we’ve taken care of all this.”

Chrisjen tried to keep her expression neutral despite the warmth rising in her cheeks. She was too old to give a shit what anyone on this ship thought of her, least of all Amos Burton. No matter how grateful she was that he had inadvertently halted her latest poor decision, and the fact that the term ‘grateful’ could be accurately applied meant she had reached a new low, she was not desperate enough to entertain the idea of adding him to the mix. “It was a…considerate offer, but I’ll pass.”

“Huh. ‘Considerate’ isn’t the word I woulda used.”

“If there wasn’t a child present, I would have chosen another and several more besides,” she said sharply.

The mechanic’s face remained placid. “Kinda forgot that you sound like a real politician sometimes.”

“I am a real politician.”

“Yeah, but usually you don’t sound like it.”

She walked him the rest of the way to the door before glancing back to make sure Mei’s attention was still elsewhere. “Go fuck yourself.”

He smiled and she shut the door in his face.

Chrisjen took a deep breath and tried to let go of her perfectly reasonable anger and worry. There was little point in trying to adjust the mask, children saw through everything, but she tried anyway. She walked back across the room and settled herself in Prax’s recently vacated seat. “What do you have here?”

“It’s a puzzle! Daddy and Amos found it.”

Chrisjen allowed her genuine surprise to show. Someone had taken the trouble, the weight allowance, to bring a physical puzzle into space. Bright colors flashed as Mei picked up two handfuls of pieces and let them rain slowly down around the scuffed box. Chrisjen wondered how much such a thing cost on Ceres. It was clearly an antique. “Do you like putting together puzzles?”

“Uh-huh. I do them on the terminal all the time, but this is my first _real_ puzzle. Do you like puzzles?”

“I like all sorts of puzzles.” Chrisjen began turning pieces right side up. There were hundreds. Too many for a five-year old surely, but Mei gamely began trying to fit pieces together.

“I find it helps to have a framework to start. Can you help me find the pieces that have straight sides?”

“Okay!” Mei enthused as she continued trying to match pieces at random.

Chrisjen sighed knowingly and began to sort the pieces. The picture on the front of the box was faded and worn but she could make out a fairytale castle settled against a stunning mountain backdrop. “I know this place.”

Mei looked at the picture. “Is it Earth?”

“Yes, it’s in part of the German Federation.”

Mei threw a blue piece away from her, back into the pile.

“The blue pieces will all be near the top.”

“Why did they make the top of the picture blue?”

“It’s a photograph of a real place. That’s the color of the sky.” Chrisjen smiled. “And if you’re going to ask me why the sky is blue I can only tell you that it has to do with light being scattered by molecules in the air.”

“Sometimes they color the tops of the tunnels blue at home too, but not always. ” Mei’s brow scrunched up and she looked at the puzzle again. “I don’t like the blue ones.”

“Do you have a favorite color?”

“Pink,” she said firmly. “What’s your favorite color?”

“I don’t think I have a favorite. I like all the colors.”

“Daddy likes green. There’s a lot of green in the picture. It’s pretty.

“It is. I visited there once.”

“Could I go there?”

Chrisjen watched the girl as she worked for a moment before speaking. “Yes. It would be hard, but you could. You can do anything you put your mind to.”

“Why is it hard?”

“Do you remember how it felt a few hours ago when the ship was traveling very quickly? On Earth, your body would feel like that all the time.”

Mei frowned. “I don’t like that.”

“It would be hard work at first, but with help from some medicines it would get easier. And eventually it wouldn’t hurt at all.”

“I have to take my medicine every day.” Her frown intensified. “Dr. Strickland says so.” Chrisjen sensed that the conversation was about to take an unpleasant turn and she let Mei crawl into her lap.

“Your medicine helps you stay healthy.”

“I wanted to help people, like a doctor. But they weren’t helping.”

Chrisjen hugged Mei tighter. “Good doctors do help. Those weren’t very good doctors.”

“Katoa was getting better but then he wasn’t.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It was scary. And he was blue.”

Chrisjen rocked her slowly. “It’s alright to be afraid of that. It is scary.”

“I wanted to be brave, like Dr. Strickland said I was supposed to. Like Katoa was.”

A fresh wave of anger at Jules Pierre Mao rolled through Avasarala. “Did you know that the only time you can be brave is when you’re scared?”

Mei shook her head mutely.

“Being brave means you keep going, even though you’re frightened. The blue stuff scares me too, but if you surround yourself with the right people it helps you be brave.”

“Like Daddy?”

“Exactly.”

“And Amos?”

“Maybe so,” Chrisjen said hesitantly.

“How do you know who the right people are?”

“That’s a very astute question,” Chrisjen hummed.

“What’s astute?”

“It means that you’re very smart. The only way to find out if a person is the right one to help you is to pay attention to them. You have to watch what they do and listen to what they say.”

“Do you have people?”

“I do. I have a family on Luna right now just like you have your daddy.”

“But they’re not here. How can you be brave if they’re not here?”

“I have Bobbie and Cotyar helping me here.”

“Are they your family too?”

Chrisjen opened her mouth to explain the concept of employment and then shut it again. “Yes.” A breath escaped her. “I can’t promise you that it always works. I’ve been studying people my whole life and even I get it wrong sometimes.”

Mei fell silent briefly as if the thought of an adult admitting to being wrong was a stunning one.

“Why do you study people?”

“It’s an important part of my job. People are a little bit like your puzzle pieces. They’re all a little different, but if you understand them you can see how they fit together.”

“Puzzle people,” Mei giggled. “That’s like a rhyme.”

“An alliteration. They start with the same letter. Rhymes end the same.”

Mei scooted forward out of Chrisjen’s lap to look at the pieces again and repeated herself, drawing out the syllables. “They both have ‘ull’ at the end.”

“Mmmm.” Chrisjen replied noncommittally. Mei seemed to have moved past her fears for the time being, but Chrisjen was still dwelling on them. She was going to bury Mao so far underground he’d never see the light of day again and then she was going to strip him of every last fucking thing he held dear. It wouldn’t change one little girl’s aversion to the color blue, but she’d make damn sure it didn't happen to someone else. Her first instincts had been right, they needed to stop anyone they could who was connected to Mao. She still hated the situation and it would be sheer stupidity not to be afraid of what could go wrong, but she had the right people. There wasn't anyone she trusted more than Cotyar and Bobbie to be able to handle it.

Avasarala’s stomach jumped into her throat as the _Roci_ cut its thrust. “Shit,” she said before she could stop herself. Mei laughed again and began filling the air with puzzle pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time since I've been able to write. I'm a little worried my characterizations are weak as a result.
> 
> Love to each and every last one of you.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got long. That invariably means more typos I don't catch, for which I apologize.

The door to the _Roci_ ’s makeshift cell slid open revealing Jules Pierre Mao floating calmly near the double bunk. Mao scowled at Cotyar’s empty hands. “No magboots for me?”

Cotyar rolled his eyes. “This is supposed to be a prisoner transfer and I, for one, would like to get off this ship without being shot. Again.”

“I’m sure you could convince them it was necessary.”

“I think you need to think a little bit about how you can avoid being shot too. There’s a trigger-happy mechanic, and an vengeful father on board. And right now, the only thing keeping either of them from coming in here and killing you is the fact that Avasarala has promised them prosecuting you is better. Do us both a favor and play along.”

Mao nodded and pushed himself towards the door. “Fine. The sooner we’re off this ship the better.”

“That just leaves Avasarala to take care of and we’ll get you to yours.”

Mao shook his head. “It isn’t important.”

Cotyar froze at the easiness in Mao’s voice. The last time they had spoken, Mao had been enraged that he might have to wait even a few more hours to have Avasarala killed. “I thought you’d be more concerned about my holding up my end of the bargain.”

“I have, as you so thoughtfully suggested, been thinking about our situation,” Mao said irritably. “You don’t intend to kill her without an escape plan; which, while not immediately gratifying, isn’t unreasonable. I’ve decided getting rid of Holden and his crew of miscreants is just as important.”

“You’re going to nuke them after we’ve gone?”

“And risk them shooting back or getting away? No. One of my men is putting explosives on the hull.”

Cotyar brought Mao to a halt at the door. “You can’t,” he said even though he knew it couldn’t possibly make a difference. “There’s a child on this ship, she’s only five.”

To his surprise, this revelation gave Mao pause. “Who?”

“Mei Meng. They picked her up on Io.” Cotyar thought he saw something like concern pass across the man’s face.

“Then we’ll bring her with us,” Mao said finally.

“What about her father?”

“What about him?”

“Do you want to bring him too? He’s not going to just let us just take his daughter.”

“If you need me to tell you how to do your job, you won’t be working for me long. I trust you can come up with a way to distract him.”

Cotyar’s face twisted. “I know how to do my job, but this wasn’t the deal. The deal was I kill Avasarala for you, and then get you off the ship without a firefight. I didn’t sign on to kill everyone else.”

Mao smiled thinly at him. “Then here’s your opportunity to make sure that doesn’t happen. Get the girl.”

Cotyar clamped his mouth shut. There was nothing else to be done; he was just going to have to run Mao around the ship a little longer. “Fine. Give me five minutes to make sure he’s out of the way. Then we can go.”

Mao shrugged and Cotyar sealed the door between them once more. Mao’s move with the explosives was unexpected but not crippling, after all, Cotyar hadn’t gotten as far as he had in his line of work without being able to adjust on the fly. But he hadn’t anticipated that Mei’s presence would affect the man at all. He decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth; collecting her would buy them time that they would need now. He pulled out his handheld and opened the comm. “Bobbie, we’ve got a problem.”

 

 

(***)       (o)       (/\\)

 

 

Bobbie was already geared up, but she double checked the readout on her recently repaired armor and wished for the fiftieth time today that her Goliath wasn’t currently a pile of junk. The suit was holding air despite the damaged side plate that had been hastily refitted. She looked at Amos who was dressed similarly and he gave her a nod.

“Do you have much experience defusing explosives?”

“A little, but most of my experience is in setting them. You?”

“Enough.”

“Great.” She blew out a breath. “You okay leaving Prax and Holden to secure that ship?”

“Nope,” Amos said flatly. “But this needs doing.”

Bobbie nodded and cycled the the engine room’s emergency airlock. She knew exactly how the big man was feeling. She’d much rather be taking the Protogen-OPA ship as they had originally planned. She trusted Cotyar to keep anyone from getting to Avasarala, his part of the plan hadn’t changed. Keep Mao from getting wind of what was really going on and alerting his crew. Until they had the transmitter, which Cotyar suspected was an implant of some sort as it hadn’t been discovered when Mao first came on board, or control of the stealth ship, keeping their prisoner in the dark was essential if they wanted to get the drop on his co-conspirators.

Bobbie frowned. Trusting someone else to do the job all well and good, but it wasn’t the same as being boots on the ground herself. Amos was right, though. Nothing to be done for it. She let her mind clear as the air around her was evacuated and the outer door opened. She had a job to do.

 

 

(***)       (o)       (/\\)

 

 

Mei had taken advantage of the _Roci_ ’s lack of thrust and had decided to try and put her puzzle together in midair. A few pieces had been correctly assembled, mostly Chrisjen’s doing, but Mei had quickly become entranced by a side project. She spun the pieces, giggling as she arranged them around her minder. Chrisjen smiled with her. Being weightless just felt wrong, easier on the joints perhaps, but for Chrisjen it couldn’t help but be a constant reminder of how far she was from home, for Mei it was a gateway to endless possibility.

The smile on Chrisjen’s face fell away as the door slid open to reveal Cotyar, pistol in hand, and Mao. No part of the plan presented to her had involved Mao coming anywhere near Mei. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” The expletive was out of her mouth before she could stop it. She climbed off the bunk carefully, certain that she was going to end up stuck, spinning in place like the pieces surrounding her until she felt her magboots adhere to the deck.

His mouth pulled into a grimace. “Please, Madam Avasarala. Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be.”

“Make what more difficult? Where’s Prax?”

“I gave him something else to do. Mei needs to come with me.”

Chrisjen’s heart sped up. “Over my fucking dead body.” Chrisjen put an arm back, encouraging Mei to stay behind her. The sudden silence from the little girl was telling. Chrisjen didn’t know if she recognized Mao or if Mei was just reading her own fears, but the why didn’t really matter. It wasn’t going to go well.

Mao snorted. “That can be arranged.”

“You want me to kill her in front of the girl?” Cotyar muttered incredulously.

Mei clutched at the back of Chrisjen’s suit. “Nana, I want my daddy.” Her voice was high and frightened.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. These men are going to get the fuck out. Now.” Chrisjen was going to kill Cotyar with her bare hands. What the hell was he thinking?

Cotyar closed the gap between them. “Don’t worry. I promise you she’ll be perfectly safe,” he said, his voice low and tight with frustration.

“You’re scaring her. Do you have any idea what Mao did to those children?”

“Enough,” came Mao’s smug voice. “Surely you’ve been in politics long enough to recognize a coup when you see one, Madam Undersecretary.”

“I want Daddy!” Mei burst into tears and Chrisjen turned to gather her up in her arms. The little girl was absurdly easy to lift in null-g.

“We’ll find your daddy,” Chrisjen said soothingly as she rubbed her back. She turned to Mao, she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to look at Cotyar. “You can have him shoot me or let me take her to the med bay.”

Cotyar looked at Mao. “It’s on the way and it'll be easier if she’s sedated.”

Chrisjen clenched a fist as Mao considered it. “Why are you doing this?”

“Believe it or not Madam, I care about that little girl.”

Her lip curled in disgust. “I don’t. You don’t care about anyone’s children, not even your own.”

 

 

(***)       (o)       (/\\)

 

 

Amos and Bobbie pulled themselves along the outer hull silently with their hands. The more time Bobbie spent with Amos the more she had come to appreciate the intelligence behind his emotionless facade. He had nodded immediately in understanding when she had said no magboots, not wanting the telltale vibrations as they walked across the metal skin of the ship to spoil their element of surprise.

She couldn’t help but think of her last space walk though; and these suits had no maglocks in the gloves. A missed grip would waste time they could ill afford. Luckily the _Roci_ was a fraction of the size of the _Guanshiyin_ ; it wouldn’t take them long to cover the whole ship.

Amos had spotted the blinking light of an armed explosive as they had come out the airlock, but they had agreed to leave it for now. The device had been placed against the heavily shielded engine exhaust and as a result was unlikely to cause them real problems. Due to the casual placement Bobbie suspected that there would be more. If she had been in charge she would have targeted the _Roci_ ’s missile bays. Why not use your enemies own ordinance against them?

Sure enough a dark, crouched figure came into view as they came around the side of the ship. Bobbie pulled up short, signaled to Amos for that she’d come up from the other side, and gave him a thirty count. Amos nodded his fist and Bobbie pulled herself around the ship. Neither of them thought shooting near the explosives was a good idea.

The man caught the flicker of movement as Bobbie came into view and turned away only to freeze at the sight of Amos and his shotgun. He looked down at the explosives before reaching for a terminal strapped to his hip. Bobbie launched herself at him. His boots were locked on and she drove his upper body toward the surface of the ship. The terminal was knocked from his grip. It bounced against the hull and drifted away. Bobbie tried to get her feet under her but before she could he released his own magboots and he kicked, pushing the two of them into space.

“Fuck!” She could see him shouting something. “Amos, I think we’re about to have more company. Get that thing off the ship.”

“Got it, Gunny.”

She heard the click as he commed the ship. “Holden, get out here. And bring a fishing line.”

Bobbie caught the tell-tale pings of gunfire on the other end of the connection. “We’re kind of busy here!” Holden shouted back.

The man she was grappling was tall and belter thin, Bobbie had him by twenty kilos easily, but in null-g, with no anchor point, she couldn’t bring her advantage to bear. He moved like someone who had lived most of his life in micro-gravity. This was his home turf. Bobbie wasn’t sure how long she could keep him immobilized and every second she was floating out here was one wasted. She needed to end this quickly. Her own gun was strapped to her back and would require letting go of her enemy to get at. Instead she got a grip on his helmet and pulled until she felt the seal pop.

The man in her arms scrabbled as they spun wildly, his venting oxygen propelling them uncontrollably. When he was finally limp, Bobbie tried to get a sense of where she was. There were no stabilizers in the armored vacsuit. The spinning star field was occasionally interrupted by the outlines of the ships she needed to get back to. She counted the seconds it took for them to come back around and then kicked off the body in her arms trying to launch herself in that direction.

Bobbie thrust her arms and legs out and twisted at her waist to change her center of mass and slow the spin. It was very gradual, but she managed to accomplished enough that she thought she’d be able to grab at an object if her trajectory was right. It was, but she hit the hull of one of the ships back first with a grunt. She twisted, trying to grab hold, but her hands slid over the smooth surface of the _Razorback_ and she cursed as she drifted away again.

“You okay out there?”

“Yeah. Getting back’s going to be a bitch though.”

“There’s no timer on these that I can see. Looks like they’re set for a triggered detonation. If the only command codes came from that terminal we’re okay, but chances are they’ve got a backup on board.”

“Right.” On the upside, her impact with the _Razorback_ had stopped her rotation completely and she could see all three ships from her vantage point. A muzzle flash from the stealth ship caught her eye. “Amos, get down! There’s a sniper on the Protogen ship.”

 

 

(***)       (o)       (/\\)

 

 

Cotyar stayed between Avasarala and Mao as they climbed to the deck that housed the _Roci_ ’s med bay. Mei sobbed into Chrisjen’s shoulder and Cotyar began to wonder exactly how long she would continue doing so. He hadn’t had any children, his experience being limited to a few hours here and there with much younger relatives. Normally he would be happy to defer to his boss’ expertise, but she seemed to be going further out of her way than usual in causing him grief. This would have gone so much more smoothly if she had just handed Mei over to him.

Avasarala stopped in the doorway of their destination and Cotyar put a hand on her empty shoulder. “Keep moving.” He didn’t particularly like having his firearm out in front of Mei, but Avasarala’s presence made it unavoidable if he wanted to keep up his charade. A charade that seemed even more necessary now that a loose cannon like Holden and a scientist with almost no combat experience were in charge of taking command of the Protogen ship. Cotyar had promised Avasarala they could handle this without getting anyone killed.

“Where’s Daddy? He’s not here! I want Daddy!”

“I know, I know.” Avasarala moved to a one of the couches and set Mei lightly down. She ran her fingers across the little girl’s face, a forced smile on her own. “I’m going to get some medicine for you. It will help you feel better and then we can find out where your father is. Okay?”

Mei nodded with a sniffle and Cotyar dragged his eyes away from the pair.

He heard Mao’s voice as he began searching for a sedative. “Do you remember me, Mei?”

“Leave her alone.”

“You’re not in charge here anymore, Madam.” Mao sounded almost gleeful. Cotyar wondered if Chrisjen took any pleasure in the fact that his lack of magboots hampered the dignified air Mao tried to project. “And you have no one to blame for that but yourself.”

He walked back across the room and offered Avasarala a small injector. “I checked the dosage.”

“Go ahead.” Chrisjen said cooly before she gave Mei a smile. “Almost done and then we can go find your father.”

The little girl flinched at the injection, but her tears had tapered off and she didn’t protest further. Avasarala murmured soothing things as her eyes drifted shut.

“Give me the gun and bring the girl.” Mao’s demand broke the illusion of calm that had settled as Mei’s sedation took effect.

Cotyar nodded to him and pushed a second injector he had palmed into Avasarala’s hand as he turned away from her.

All three of them looked up as the sound of gunfire came from the deck above.

“What the hell is happening now?”

Cotyar moved quickly to the ladder with Mao trailing after him. He was about to suggest that they stay clear when a choking sound made him turn back. Avasarala had followed and jammed the injector into Mao’s neck. The force drove his knees to the deck. He tried to turn and succeeded only in pushing himself woozily back up before his limbs became ineffectual. He went slack as he lost consciousness. Chrisjen gave the man an angry shove without concern for where his body would end up and then slapped Cotyar hard across the face. He worked his stinging jaw slowly.

Her voice was gravel when she spoke. “We’ll get into what the fuck you could possibly have been thinking, getting a child involved in this, later. Where is Bobbie?”

Cotyar let her anger roll around him. Getting into a shouting match was a distraction he didn’t need just now. He moved back into the medbay to retrieve Mao’s body and strapped him into a vacant crash couch. “She’s trying to defuse the explosives on the outside of the ship.”

“The what?!”

He shook his head. “It’s under control. Stay with here Mei or take her back to her quarters.”

Another burst of gunfire echoed above them and Holden’s muffled voice could be heard shouting something.

“Jesus Christ, it is very clearly not under control!”

“I _will_ sedate you too. Stay. Put.”

Chrisjen glowered at him. “What are you going to do about it?”

Cotyar began climbing up to the main airlock. “Make sure they don’t take Mao off this ship.”

“Don’t fucking die,” she said as he disengaged his boots and flew up the stairwell. She called up after him. “Because when this is over I’m going to kill you.”

 

 

(***)       (o)       (/\\)

 

 

“Hiding’s not gonna help; if he hits that bomb I’m dead either way,” came Amos’ response.

“Let’s assume he’s not trying to. Mao should still be on the _Roci_.” She saw Amos duck down behind the ridge of the missile launchers.

“Not to hurry you, Holden, but we’re gonna be a ball of fire if this guy loses his patience.”

“Goddamnit, Amos!” Holden’s aggravated voice came over her hemet speakers. “Deal with it!”

Bobbie clicked on her radio again. “Amos, I can take the sniper, but you’re going to have to get me in the airlock after.”

“Whatever you say, Gunny.”

There was no way she could hit their attacker at this range with the the weapon she had. Nor was it going to be useful in giving her much momentum. Her assault rifle was designed for ship to ship combat and fired low recoil rounds. She set it to burst fire and pointed it opposite the direction she wanted to go. She would expend the entire clip trying to get there with any speed so she only fired off a few rounds, adjusting to make sure she was in line with her target. Satisfied with the angle of her barely perceptible drift, she turned slowly and got a grip on the buckled plate at her side and yanked it loose.

Her make shift thruster flung her towards her target. She watched the low oxygen alert pop up in her display and she clamped down on the hole with one hand. She clicked her heels together to engage her boots, rotated to land feet first and hit the stealth ship hard. She managed to give enough with her knees to allow her boots time to fully engage. Her angle had been good; the sniper was only ten meters from her. She brought her rifle to bear before he could turn on her and fired. His body twitched as a dozen rounds penetrated his suit and then hung still. “Clear,” she called.

Bobbie felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. Her air was nearly exhausted. She wasn’t going to make it back to the Roci before it was gone. “I’ve got no air. Where’s Holden and that line?”

“Busy, I guess, but that sniper wouldn’t have set up far from an access point. Can you find a way in over there?”

Bobbie looked around, her head fuzzy. “Found it.” Her brain was working on autopilot and she could barely make out the panel in front of her. The hatch slid open and she pulled herself inside. She hit what she hoped would pressurize the airlock and yanked her helmet off as air flooded the small room and her lungs. The darkness ringing her vision receded. “Still here,” she said into the open comm.

“Good to hear. Sounds like they could use your help.”

“Seems like I have to do everything around here.”

Amos chuckled. “I think that’s how Naomi felt most of the time.”

Bobbie huffed in surprise. She hadn’t considered that she had much in common with the belter girl.

“You want me to come over?”

“No. Get that explosive disarmed. We’re going to have to do a sweep of the whole hull. I’ll make sure no one over here sets it off in your face.”

 

 

(***)       (o)       (/\\)

 

 

Cotyar halted himself at the edge of the deck, not wanting to expose himself to the fire coming through the airlock. “Why are we shooting?” he gritted out.

Holden looked down at him from his vantage point behind a bulkhead. Prax stood opposite him. “I don’t think they’re Mao’s employees,” the Earther said angrily. “That guy didn’t even pretend to be UN,” he gestured to a dead belter with OPA tats lying in the entryway. “So the question is, how long until they decide Mao’s not worth the trouble?”

“Hey!” Cotyar called down the gangway. “I’ve got Mao here. I don’t think your boss is going to be happy if he ends up shot.”

A voice, untinged by Lang Belta, came back to them, “Throw your weapons into the airlock and come out where we can see you.”

“There’s an employee.” Cotyar signaled Holden to stay put and hissed at Prax. “Don’t move and don’t shoot.” He tossed his gun up into the airlock and pulled himself out of the stairwell with his hands in the air. “If you’re ready to stop shooting, I’d be happy to escort Mr. Mao to your ship.”

Two men with the thick set of Earthers stepped out warily, their weapons still trained on him. Definitely not OPA, they wore the sleek black of a well-funded, private army. “Where’s Mr. Mao?”

“Downstairs, well away from the firefight.” A wry smile crossed his fave. “Ah, I think you gentlemen had better put your weapons away now.”

“And why is that?”

A click came from behind them as Bobbie’s boots engaged on the deck, her weapon leveled. “Ship’s clear.”

Holden and Prax stepped out at the sound of Bobbie’s voice. And to Cotyar’s immense relief the two Protogen employees surrendered their weapons. It was the only part of this entire debacle that had gone remotely to plan.

“Good work, Marine.” He glanced down the stairwell and then turned to Bobbie with a smile. “You up for a more strenuous task?”

 

 

(***)       (o)       (/\\)

 

 

Chrisjen checked Mei’s vitals, stable, for the third time and went back to her vigil by the door. She hadn’t heard gunfire for several minutes now. A sigh of relief escaped her as Bobbie came down the steps followed by Prax. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Fine. Not the smoothest operation I’ve ever been a part of, but not a complete fuck up either.”

Prax nodded. “How’s Mei?”

“Sedated, but alright for now. She would like to see you very much.”

“Of course.” Prax gathered the sleeping girl into his arms and took her down the ladder. Chrisjen wanted to say something else, but the gnawing guilt at being responsible for the little girl’s upset stilled her tongue.

She held out a hand and Bobbie took it. She let her eyes fall shut as the marine gave it a squeeze. “Was anyone injured?”

“Three dead belters, OPA we assume. Two of Mao’s ex-employees are in custody. They haven’t said anything yet.”

When she opened her eyes Chrisjen’s voice was hard. “They will.”

Bobbie nodded.

“Are we going to explode?”

“I don’t think so. Holden’s going to help Amos make sure the hull is clear. Cotyar is going over the stealth ship. He and Alex will get it slaved to the _Roci_.”

“And what about you? Surely Cotyar has a task for you.”

“He does, after a fashion.” Bobbie tugged on Chrisjen’s arm. “Come on. I want to get out of this armor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter of this story will be posted as a stand alone fic...primarily because I don't want to change the rating of this. I realize that means a bit of extra work for the readers who are interested in it, but I hope I can make it easy enough to find. The excised chapter does not contain unique plot points and the story will read as it should if you chose not to read it. It does contain sex.


	16. Chapter 16

Arjun heard his wife before he could see her. Security concerns prevented his being on the dock when her ship arrived, and his eyes frantically searched the large hall below him that made up the arrivals area of Lovell City’s spaceport. At the moment he suspected he was the lone private citizen in this area. Only those with UN or naval business were cleared to be here; even then it didn’t seem any less crowded than an average day.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re taking my marine?” Arjun almost laughed at her outraged shout as he began down the stairs. It was designed to make some poor fool quake in their boots. He had missed everything about her. Even the mask.

“Ma’am!” came a barking reply. “The Martian—

“She has a fucking name.” Her voice echoed oddly as it carried in the vaulted chamber. He wondered the artificial air mixture they breathed on Luna altered the speed of sound even fractionally in comparison to Earth’s atmosphere. Was the human brain even capable of discerning such a minute change, or more likely, was what he heard solely due to the acoustics of the space? The only thing he knew for certain was the sound of Chrisjen’s voice made him even more homesick than usual.

The massive reinforced, glass dome above them served little utilitarian purpose. Sometime before the Vesta blockade some official had thought the thing to do was to expand Luna’s primary space port, a show of opulence rather than force, and had the dome built so that travelers could marvel at the looming ocean of darkness and the jewel that was Earth hanging before them.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he heard as their voices reached him again. “Sergeant Draper does need to be debriefed.”

Arjun finally spotted her. It was the lack of color, he thought, that had hidden her. She was usually the vibrant spot in a sea of dark and muted blues. The white jumpsuit she was wearing was striking. It still managed to contrast the mixture of dark plain-clothed government aides and uniformed naval security that surrounded her, but it seemed cold and sterile in comparison to her usual rich warmth. It made his heart clench uncomfortably.

Chrisjen was pushing several heavily armed soldiers out of her way to get to a tall woman in some sort of grey, half-armored outfit. “Sergeant Draper is not a prisoner here.”

The woman in grey looked cautiously amused at the situation, the harassed UN officer anything but. “Ma’am, my orders are clear—”

Chrisjen’s voice modulated and with that Arjun knew the poor woman answering her, or just as likely her superior officer, was in real trouble, “Who the hell gave you that order?”

“Commander Suwe, Ma’am,” she said stiffly.

“You can tell Commander Suwe, that no one is to—” Arjun saw Chrisjen’s expression widen as she caught sight of him out of the corner of her eye. He took a breath, his eyes locked on hers. Then another. A third and she still hadn’t spoken again. It could have been a scene from a fairytale; the courtiers frozen around her in anticipation of her waking, or wondering if perhaps she had just had a stroke. Someone coughed and she blinked. The spell was broken. She turned briefly to the tall woman next to her. “Don’t you fucking move. And you,” she snapped at the floundering officer. “Try to take her out of my sight again and I will make sure you are eating shit, breakfast, lunch, and dinner until your tour is done.”

“Um, yes. Ma’am.”

Chrisjen turned and frowned at a young man taking notes rapidly on his terminal whose only misfortune was to be standing between them. “Get the fuck out of my way.”

Arjun closed the distance between them, meeting her halfway and wrapped his arms around her. His head bent to her ear. “I missed you.” He felt her nod, her face pressed to his shoulder.

She pulled back slightly, and gave him a tight smile. He could see her fighting back tears and felt them prick at his own eyes. “Don’t you fucking start.”

He laughed and pulled her tighter. He wanted to ask about the faint bruising at her jaw. How bad had it been during the nearly thirty hours she had been out of contact with everyone? When he had finally been able to reach her again, her replies had been voice only. She had never been terribly vain, but she knew he would worry. Didn’t she realize he worried anyway? He wanted to run his hands over her to assure himself she was whole and here. He contented himself for the time being with a butterfly kiss against her forehead. She let his fingers entwine with hers and he squeezed gently.

Her hangers-on milled about, awkwardly avoiding staring at their display, murmuring amongst themselves. It was clear they were afraid to bring Chrisjen’s ire down on themselves, but the large woman in grey walked up behind her, unconcerned. “You must be Bobbie Draper.”

“Yes, sir.”

“My wife has told me quite a bit about you. I understand I owe you a great deal.”

“No, sir,” she said her eyes darting to Chrisjen. “I—I don’t see it that way. That is—I was only doing my job,” Bobbie cringed.

Arjun looked at his wife quickly enough to catch her eye roll and he smiled kindly. “In that case, you must come to dinner. I think if nothing else, I owe you a drink. If only because you had to put up with her for so long.”

“Madam Secretary, this way please?” the young man with the hand terminal broke in. “We need to get you to the infirmary.”

“Whatever for?”

The boy blinked. “To make sure you’re, uh, well, Ma’am. And to determine when you’ll be ready to return to Earth. A doctor is waiting to see you. We can confirm the rest of your schedule on the way.”

“Shelve it. I get four hours. Four. During which none of you,” her gaze swept over the assembly, “will bother me unless there is a shit-storm of apocalyptic proportions. And try to keep in mind, that bar has been significantly raised. Until then you can fuck off.”

“But, Ma’am—”

A bodyguard Arjun recognized appeared in front of them. That was the only way he could think to describe it. One moment the man had been a faceless nobody in the crowd, the next Cotyar Ghazi had a hand pressed to the young man’s chest. “You heard Madam Avasarala. Fuck off.”

The boy nodded nervously and her coterie began to disperse.

“That isn’t your job anymore,” Chrisjen said sharply. Arjun noted that despite her tone, she waited to chastise Cotyar until her staff had dispersed.

“Just trying to be helpful.” He gave Arjun a stiff smile and a short bow.

“Mr. Ghazi. I’m glad to see you made it back from all this in one piece.”

A wry smile turned up the corner of his mouth. “Thank you. I just wish I could say the only thing injured was my pride.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, you’re an insufferable martyr. We’re going to the house. Now. I don’t intend to waste the little personal time I have standing here.” Chrisjen tugged on Arjun’s arm and started moving in the direction of the transport pod. “God knows those assholes are all watching the clock like hawks. In four hours they’ll be breathing down my neck again.”

“Four? I bet you she doesn’t get three,” Cotyar’s voice drifted forward even though he and Bobbie lagged behind.

“Not sure if any of them are that stupid. I say at least three and a half.”

“You’ve forgotten there’s a scary Martian Marine bending Her Majesty’s ear. And doing god knows what else.”

“Shut up.” Bobbie’s words were accompanied by a low thump. Cotyar grunted.

Arjun pulled Chrisjen into his side with a smile. “Welcome home.”

She looked up at the blue and green orb hanging in the dark sky above them and then back at his shining face. “Close enough.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you.
> 
> Thank you for just reading. Thank you for leaving kudos. Thank you for taking the time to comment and give me feedback. Writing this has been a lot of fun, occasionally frustrating and worrying, mostly fun. But it honestly wouldn't have been half as much without you all. Thank you for letting me share this with you.


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